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Remembering the old way we used to set up for a big pour | Concrete Finishers - Vivisector

Remembering the old way we used to set up for a big pour

Three years ago on a job in Tacoma, we were setting up for a 40 yard pour on a sloped driveway. The crew spent the whole morning before the trucks arrived just building a ramp out of scrap lumber and dirt so the wheelbarrows could get up the grade. We had four guys on barrows, two on the screed, and the radio was the only thing keeping us going. Last month, I was on a similar site and the foreman just rolled out these aluminum track systems for a power buggy. The whole setup took maybe an hour. It's wild how much the tools change the pace, even if the finish work with the floats and trowels feels exactly the same. Does anyone else miss the raw hustle of those old setups, or is it just me being sentimental?

3 comments

3 Comments

wood.uma5mo ago

Honestly that old hustle sounds like a lot of wasted time and sore backs. Maybe it's just me, but watching a crew spend half a day building a dirt ramp feels like poor planning now. The new tools get the same concrete down faster so the finishers can start their real work. The romance of the grind fades fast when you realize it was just inefficiency.

julia_carter615mo ago

Man, @wood.uma you're hitting on something real there. So when you see that old way now, do you think the guys who did it just didn't know better, or did they actually believe all that extra work meant a better job? Tbh I wonder if some crews just got stuck in their ways and called it skill.

laura6675mo ago

My first crew boss in '98 swore by those dirt ramps, said it proved we cared about the pour. Then I saw a pump truck place a whole foundation in two hours flat. That's when I realized we were just making extra work for ourselves and calling it pride.