Hidden in the concrete are 93 bars of re-bar. They are spread out like a wagon wheel from the center. We used five re-bar circles starting with a small one in the middle and extending to the very outer circle to stabilize all the bars. The re-bar is suspended in the middle of the concrete to give support and keep it from breaking under the weight of the grain.
Just as I was heading to the house to fix a quick lunch, the first cement truck pulled in with three more right behind him. Lunch would have to wait. When pouring concrete you only have a small window of time to get it from the truck to the forms, leveled off, and smoothed out before it dries. Luckily a couple of neighbors weren't in the fields yet and came over to help. Plus my father and a retired co-worker of his dropped what they were doing to help. We ended up with eight adults. It was the perfect number, but not an extra hand to take pictures along the way.
Once the cement truck is in place he augers the cement down a shoot right to the forms. One person guides the shoot to place the cement in the right location. A couple men then take the concrete and spread it out, making sure to fill every space. We started by filling up the perimeter around the outside because it was deeper around the edge. The edge is 18 inches thick to form a rat barrier to keep the rats from digging under the grain bin. The middle, though, is only 6inches thick. As the perimeter was filling up, my father-in-law tamped down the concrete around the edge to make sure their wouldn't be any bubbles around the outside. Then I went around the outside with a rubber mallet and hit all the metal forms to make sure it was fully settled.
As the second cement truck was dumping we started filling in the middle. We weren't completely done with the perimeter, but the cement truck found a soft spot in the cattle lot. It was sinking down to its axle and the tires were still spinning. We needed to unload the truck to lighten its load, making it easier to pull out with our tractor.
By the time the third cement truck started unloading some of us had to move to striking it off before it dries. To strike it off you have one person on either side of a 2x4 that stretches from the center to the outside. You push and pull the 2x4 back and forth while it rests on the outside metal form and a small circular platform in the middle. As you do this you also pulling around the grain bin much like the minute hand on your clock. This allows you to level off the concrete. Another couple people either drags cement to low spots or pulls extra away as you go around.
Being the person in the middle of the bin was easier at the beginning, because I didn't have to pull it as far. In the end, though, it prooved to be more challenging. When you get closer to where you started you have to step into the cement you already leveled off. After standing there to finish striking it off, your boots starts to get stuck in the drying cement.
As we were striking it off, one person had a bull float to finish leveling it off. A bull float is a rectangle metal plate connected with a long handle. The handle has to be long enough to reach across the cement from the outside which was 18 feet 8 inches. In essence you use a bull float to smooth the surface just like you would a knife when frosting a cake.
After striking and bull floating are complete, another person takes an edger and runs it around the outside to give it a nice curved edge. As you can see in the next picture, my husband and his best friend had to leave their mark in it.
If you are pouring a basement floor or garage floor you would spend more time smoothing off the surface so it was slick. Our grain bin will have a metal flooring in it which made that step unnecessary.
As soon as we finished, my husband hopped into the tractor and began working ground to plant corn. Needless to say it didn't rain like it was supposed to and all our corn was planted before 9 o'clock Sunday morning.
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