Slab Happy

We’ve finally had a break in the weather for a few days, so the crew jumped on the first bright day to pour the slab.

Great big truck drives up, then puts the drum in reverse (there are vanes inside the drum which mix in one direction, force concrete out in the other direction.

Then the stuff comes slithering down the chute. It’s incredibly heavy but it moves easily; the crew rake and stomp it into place.

I did not get any photos of it in operation, but they use a power-trowel, which is sort of like a lawnmower with trowel panels on the bottom instead of blades; it skims the surface (since it weighs a lot less than a comparable amount of wet concrete) and you walk it back and forth to make flatness happen.

Now it cures for a while, then the roof goes on, the heavy machinery goes in, and the sides go on. After that, it’s my turn to run the electric, build the benches and ventilation system, raised floor in the sharpening area, and doors. Somewhere in there I need to tear down my existing set-up and move it and the propane tank. The little stuff like my anvil and stump and whatnot will just go in the back of my truck. I hope.

There’s still tons to do and I’ll be happy if I have the place operational by fall. If I can do that I’m going to have a warm and productive winter!


  1. says

    Power trowels are fun gadgets. I’m interested though to see a lack of weeding, a lack of a vapour barrier and a lack of reinforcing mesh. At least it’s nice and level.

  2. kestrel says

    @Lofty, #4: yeah… that lack of mesh is disturbing, but perhaps they reinforced some other way? I was just involved in a project that included LOTS of cement, and I had it explained to me again and again that there needed to be mesh. But again, maybe they used some other technique.

    In the meantime hooray for the slab, progress!

  3. lochaber says

    didn’t know that about the cement trucks, so thanks.
    I’m also concerned about reinforcement?

  4. says

    I think it’ll be OK without reinforcement. The only place where there’ll be anything heavy is reinforced. The ground underneath is packed shale that has been compressed there for 25+ years and is very stable.

    A friend of mine made a brilliant suggestion, a couple days too late: I should have had the fab shop cut the badger logo in steel and embedded that in the floor. That would have been super cool; I even have a 4×4 plate of 1/4″ steel that would have been perfect. It’s slated to become a sign, but being in the slab would have been super cool. Oh, well. And there won’t be a “next time.”

  5. lochaber says

    as to the badger logo, I imagine you could carve out a spot and embed it with some liberal epoxy use, but, yeah, that’s a lot more work.

  6. Pierce R. Butler says


    Yabbut it’s gonna be taking some ferocious vibrations and unequally distributed heavy loads.

    Howsomeverwise – alea jacta est!

  7. says

    johnson catman says

    June 26, 2019 at 3:23 pm

    I think you should have ordered a building twice that size.


    I agree. You are always expanding your work and buying new equipment.

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