Concrete mixer project....

[brightspark]

I have 2 bought them 40 years ago for 150 quid each new .one rarely used the other well used but no dents in it . shotblasted it inside and out re painted it and it looks like new

 

[julianf]

Mine has a drum rather like yours started with.

I serviced the engine, and changed the gear box oil when I first got it (£60 off gumtree - petrol one)

It mixes cement fine, even with the dents in the drum.

I thought about buying a new drum for it, but then I figured I didn't really care if my cement mixer had a dented drum!

: )

 

[mtt.tr]

I have 2 bought them 40 years ago for 150 quid each new .one rarely used the other well used but no dents in it . shotblasted it inside and out re painted it and it looks like new

i bought a mini mix from an old boy who used it for some fences, you could eat from it the drum was that clean. also paid 150

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

I couldn't find a decent secondhand Belle 150 (240v model) locally last year, new ones from Screwfix seemed to be most expensive at over £500, so I was happy to buy from local Travis Perkins depot for £385 including VAT (those prices were July 2019).

An acquaintance from Orkney (where folk tend to be careful with their money) told me afterwards that I should have bought a cheap old mixer with hard set concrete inside the drum, because it can be removed by lighting a fire inside (wood and petrol were mentioned) so that expansion/contraction cracks the concrete and allows it to be removed fairly easily in small pieces. Is that a known technique, or was he just pulling my leg?

 

[brightspark]

I couldn't find a decent secondhand Belle 150 (240v model) locally last year, new ones from Screwfix seemed to be most expensive at over £500, so I was happy to buy from local Travis Perkins depot for £385 including VAT (those prices were July 2019).

An acquaintance from Orkney (where folk tend to be careful with their money) told me afterwards that I should have bought a cheap old mixer with hard set concrete inside the drum, because it can be removed by lighting a fire inside (wood and petrol were mentioned) so that expansion/contraction cracks the concrete and allows it to be removed fairly easily in small pieces. Is that a known technique, or was he just pulling my leg?

if u did use it stand well clear. the face of the concrete explodes it would crack in places but its a load of old cobblers

 

[brightspark]

if u did use it stand well clear. the face of the concrete explodes it would crack in places but its a load of old cobblers

I shot blasted mine out and that was a pig because all the crap and air flew out in your face and hit the airfed mask and you couldn't see where u were blasting it was just guesswork

 

[Barking Mat]

Never paid more than 50 quid for a s/h mixer..

I've two, in case one dies.

 

[gaz1]

if u did use it stand well clear. the face of the concrete explodes it would crack in places but its a load of old cobblers

have to agree with brightspark built a fire on concrete and it went with such a bang it shattered the concrete underneath the fire the other 2 soon shouted outside of the window asking what was that it was that loud of a bang and if i was ok

 

[Mick Annick]

I have resisted thus far, but will have to tell you another old codgers story of when I was a boy...

I did my apprenticeship as a truck mechanic with Ready Mixed Concrete Ltd - now long gone but we ran big orange concrete mixer lorries many years ago. We had a mix of owner drivers who were pretty good at looking after their trucks, and company (employed) drivers who didn’t. When a company driver left, the truck would come back to us for a check over before going out to the next driver, though invariably the last muppet would have failed to wash out properly after each load, so there would be a build up inside of anything up to 18 inches of concrete; cue one spotty little apprentice...

The drill was park the truck as far away from the workshop as an airline would allow (dust and noise), lock the cab and put the keys in your pocket, disconnect the battery, tie up the feed hopper and remove the access hatch from the drum. Put on goggles, ear defenders and dust mask and climb into drum, have colleague pass you the kango and proceed to chisel out the concrete. Note no hard hat provided, tough luck if a bit fell off above you and landed on your head. It was a mark of honour to finish the job without there being any barnacles on the outside of the drum from careless use of the kango.

For a teenage lad it was a scary, miserable job, especially in The heat of summer, made worse by sadistic colleagues who thought smacking the outside of the drum with a sledgehammer was funny.

On a welding related tangent, one of the most skilful welding jobs I’ve witnessed was the subcontractor that used to reskin the drums for us. When the drums got so thin they started to bulge or even leak, a father and son team would come and cut out one third of the circumference of the drum, tack a new sheet of plate steel at one end, put chains and Yale winches around the drum and with a big oxy-propane gun heat and tighten the plate until they got it to the right curvature, weld it all round then do it again twice more until the job was complete. I then got to prep and spray it outside - red oxide primer and enamel top coat - set the drum spinning slowly and stand there with a bit of wet and dry whilst it went round and round , same again to paint.

 

[DAPPH]

https://www.cretebeater.com
Probably a bit pricey for a one off.

Paid 90 quid for an old bell. Rubber tyre jobbie.
Been bomb proof and well looked after. Only issue it's blooming heavy..

The barrel should unscrew with a couple of sharp jerks anti clockwise .

 

[DAPPH]

I couldn't find a decent secondhand Belle 150 (240v model) locally last year, new ones from Screwfix seemed to be most expensive at over £500, so I was happy to buy from local Travis Perkins depot for £385 including VAT (those prices were July 2019).

An acquaintance from Orkney (where folk tend to be careful with their money) told me afterwards that I should have bought a cheap old mixer with hard set concrete inside the drum, because it can be removed by lighting a fire inside (wood and petrol were mentioned) so that expansion/contraction cracks the concrete and allows it to be removed fairly easily in small pieces. Is that a known technique, or was he just pulling my leg?

In my hire company if we got a rock solid set barrel back I used an inch SDS to get a few holes going then walloped it a few time with a lump hammer .
Then took a long SDS chisel to what was left ..once you get a track of bare metal going it's easy just to keep breaking bits out into the gap .

Never chuck bricks or lumps of concrete in the barrel to clean it . Instead put in five or six shovels of mixed ballast & a few buckets of water is all you need . let it run for an hour or so & it gets cleaned whilst your doing something else .

 

[eLuSiVeMiTe]

In my hire company if we got a rock solid set barrel back I used an inch SDS to get a few holes going then walloped it a few time with a lump hammer .
Then took a long SDS chisel to what was left ..once you get a track of bare metal going it's easy just to keep breaking bits out into the gap .

Never chuck bricks or lumps of concrete in the barrel to clean it . Instead put in five or six shovels of mixed ballast & a few buckets of water is all you need . let it run for an hour or so & it gets cleaned whilst your doing something else .

I normally pinch some pea shingle from a drive to clean out. Never understand why you would Chuck bricks in

 

[brightspark]

when I used to hire them out I told them to clean drum out regular during the day and help by putting a load of pebbles in it with water and NOT bricks and scrape crap of from behind the paddles

 

[DAPPH]

It always seemed to be the guys who did a lot of floor screed work that always gave a caked mixer back . Having mixed a few floor screeds up in a mixer I can see why . Last time I screeded a big floor I got it mixed up at the ready mix plant in one tonne batches and got them to put a 24 hr retarding agent in it then hipped it back to the job in my steel bodied one tonne trailer .