Aircrete Garden Boxes PART 3.6 - Air Crete Lightweight Foam Concrete from Portland Cement
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- Опубликовано: 3 ноя 2019
- Make your own Aircrete Garden Boxes! Build the forms and cast your own reinforced lightweight concrete panels that join together to make long lasting and durable garden boxes. I'll make a lightweight concrete version of my garden panel from Air Crete. And, I'll experiment with cement dyes and pigments to see how the colours work out. I'll replace the gravel aggregate from concrete with foam to make air crete. This is Part 3.6 of the series and a follow-up to Part 3.
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#aircrete #lightweightconcrete #foamcrete 
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I now have molds ready-to-go here: manabouttools.com/product-category/abs-plastic-molds/
This guy must have a whole warehouse full of these concrete panels now.
I cannot believe the amount of work you have put into this. I feel like you're giving away trade secrets. So much respect.
Best unexpected series. Worth binge-watching.
appreciate and love your consistent follow-up perfection of these cement panels!
This is an excellent series of videos. Thank you.
Your garden boxes are shiny and easy to manage, also no tears.
What a great series ! I look forward to the follow up next year on freeze / thaw durability. Truly fascinating - thank you.
Thanks! I'll get these panels out in the garden for the winter and do a follow up video late spring.
Thank you for all of the work you did on this.
I'm inspired to make aircrete now. I'd like to have a go at adding all the ingredients by weight into a bucket and foaming in place.
This is bloody genius
Really love seeing the process you're going through to make strong but light weight concrete planters. It's cool to see your thought process and the results.
Another great presentation. Thank you.
Nice to see someone who knows what he is doing, drying the concrete under water.
Is the concrete waterproof? And can you do a stress test? See how much weight they can hold? Man you got me going!
Beautiful Work and Presentation. Thanks
Omg! God bless you with the shampoo idea for foam :)
1 minute in and I'm captivated. I guess I'll check out 1 and 2.
Love when you add color!
Thanks for your great videos
Wonderfully done video .
I love that you actually hydrated you aircrete for curing, it seems everyone else neglect that step.
would sprinkling water work like submerging the panels?
@@jeffreydustin5303 A constant mist would be fine, anything you do is better then doing nothing. Seems like a waist of water though, if you dont recycle it.
If you can, make a tub from ferrocement
:-)
Aircrete will collapse before it sets if it's cast in full sun (at least when it's also fairly warm outside), adding an aggregate like perlite or crushed up aircrete will keep it from collapsing. I guess it has something to do with the solar radiation causes the bubbles in the mix to expand and rise through the extra liquidy mix. There are some cure time and strength advantages to using aircrete pebbles as an aggregate versus solid casting in aircrete.
So, you can mix a batch of aircrete and spread it out thin on a sheet of plastic with a notched trowel, then when it sets lift the sheet and let the pieces break up into a pile. You can use these little pieces in place of perlite. You can make these pieces out of a lighter weight mix (a higher foam ratio) and then mix just the pieces 5:1 with cement.
this is gold.
I guess you can always make a mix of pieces. Use the heavy duty ones for the lower level of a tall box so it can withstand the abuse of hard objects such as a trimmer or metal tools and light ones on the top for less weight and reduced cost.
Yes! That's a great suggestion!
@@MANaboutTOOLS don't forget extra reinforcing and added drain/weep holes/french drains in colder climates
its not realy the weight what matters if you get it strong enough
you could use U shaped reinforcements who reach in the bars on top and bottom to create a 3d formed reinforcement of the elements
as perlite gave you i guess 46% ligther modules its more easy to produce and more persistent if you mass produce it as foam. there are also foamglas (or stone i cant find it) perls who have a lot higher strength than perlite and air in it, that together with perlite and glasfibers and csm concrete should give you the highest strenght over all
CSM cement with 3d bendet reinforcements who reach to the pipe elemets would be the best for high load modules who can go at the bottom of a raised bed
you can even colorcode it with different colors or shades to blend the bottom parts of a raised bed better into the landscape and cover some spatters from rain or grascuttings (and easy to different from the others)
@MAn about Tools: i would every time use glasfibers in the mix it makes a hughe different in breaking resistance.
and you can use plastic mesh for concrete floors with at least 8mm mesh with as reinforcements instead of the rebars. maybee combined with a single steel bar for length strength against breacking (but i think its not needet with your design)
best part is you can cut the plastic mesh to reach into the ears and to the pipes and you dont add steel to the modules who can rust in the long therm
just dont use to small mesh width because it will separate the 2 layers of concrete
Great video, thank you for sharing!!!👍
Hi Kent, great video. I subscribed because of your professional production on all levels. Thumbs up, too. Thank you. Cheers, D.
thanks! just seen this video, answering my question about the previous part e.g why you havent used aircrete... should have checked your other videos first... great job! thanks!
Thank you for your mix and process info! An aircrete mix that dense does consume a lot of cement, as it turns out. I guesstrapolated this mix to over ten sacks per cubic yard - twice what normal concrete needs. (15lb/0.42ft^2)*27/94
Wow. I got excited when I saw this post..
Thanks!
These panels are GREAT! Totally impressed with the forms. The shape makes me think you could make walls or other structures as well. My only suggestion would be to make a recess in the bottom edge and a matching key on the top edge to make stacking more structurally stable.
GREAT IDEA. A lego version...
Thanks for another informative and entertaining video. This is on the list of things to do in the spring of 2020. You have saved us a lot of time with your experiments and advice. Before your series, I was juggling a lot of ideas, but this makes the decisions easier.
You are very welcome! Cheers!
Thinking about making an out door table top with this mix! Thanks for the video it was great
Great info...will try this at home
Brilliant video, thank you.
Great video. Thank you
Can't wait to try my own experiment as well without going too crazy LOL. Planing to use AIRCRETE, Fritz-Pak Concrete Superplasticizer Additive, Akona Liquid Air Entraining Admixture, Owens Anti-Crak Concrete Fibers
May also use Fly Ash, Slag, or Silica Fume on future builds.
I really enjoy and appreciate your experiments and your attention to detail.
Thank you! Cheers!
Thanks for your videos
Hey Ken ever thought about instead of a recess make a router template and make a protruding design on side, in the spring I'm going to try a inlayed diamond design on mold
great video again, thanks! will be looking forward to the next. :-)
great video! thanks
fantastic work!
Thanks! These panels worked out well.
very nice video :) keep it up... keep sharing ideas.... :) all the best :)
Made several with with your perlite mix just before Covid hit. Used galvanized fencing panels and dimensional lumber. All are in great shape after 3 very hard winters. Miner chips but after being moved several times they are very strong and durable. Switching over to 14” height this fall, bb form ply and steel angle for edge forming. My old forms didn’t weather as well as the planters have.
Also switching to 6x6WWF to eliminate waste. My son in law has offered his old milk barn for setting up shop. Adding a home made vibrating table and switching mix designs to save weight. 1/4” pencil rod should work well for locking them together and additional reinforcement along the wings. I’m still working through the reinforcement around the sleeves . I use 9-wire spiraled around the poly sleeves . It works great but hard on the old hands. I’m looking forward to using the air-Crete mix I think is your instruction 3.6
I have a Perlite mine and manufacturer about 40 miles from us that has helped save money and provided some assistance. Thanks for the time and effort you put in to your training and products. After 40 years as a commercial carpenter working with GFRC I wasn’t intimidated by you presented. You have put together the full package! If you want high quality garden planters your service is worth the time and investment. Best tomatoes I’ve had in almost 70 years!
Really fantastic and thank you for exploring aircrete options. I checked out your earlier vids and your jig vids are great. Thanks again for awesome valuable content for other DIY'ers. Please keep up the testing and please share. I wanted to use a similar approach to make skirting for a raised home or faux stone siding panels and still am a bit unsure 1) concrete foam consistency / ratio to withstand some projectile like a rock from the weedeater/ lawnmower or a runaway basketball 2) appropriate minimal thickness for strength and resistance as a siding panel 3) how does the aircrete cut with a simple saw or concrete blade tool? Extreme chipping and crumbling?
man really great explanation. I will give this a shot!! well done!!.
Thanks!!
Aircrete, never heard of it before. Cool vid.
Thanks! It's very interesting stuff for sure.
Dude that’s awesome. I’ve been thinking about getting a aircrete setup for a while. I had the feeling it would take some dialing in
great video!!!!!!!
The longer I follow this series the more I am convinced to use these cast "box sides" as the stepping face of terracing I will be installing along my road front gardens instead of blocks, bricks, and tree trunks! What convinces me to this direction is the ability to be able to drive longer rebar through the connection points for extra strength against being pushed forward if there is a shift in the slope above the terrace step. Thanks for a great idea, and your continued work to improve on the mix ratio possibilities.
I would recommend a few changes if used for terracing for example every 2 panels adding a brace that goes into the hillside at a right angle to the wall to help stabilize the wall reinforcing it against the dirt loading as well as you'll need drainage behind the wall/thru the wall to prevent bulging/ blowout out via hydraulic saturation from rain/snow/watering/other forms of precipitation
@@dodgeme1986truck thanks for that insight, possibly building the casting forms smaller, 2 to three feet, and putting them in a zigzag pattern with up to 90 degree angles would be beneficial. Also changing the casting form to create weep holes along the bottom edge should help prevent bulging via the possible hydraulic saturation; even with the soil having good drainage and no bulge present with an 8 inch step in the terrace, changing to an increased step could cause a problem with the future remake of the road front gardens.
(The old gardens were destroyed by a new sewer project, thus I have a new canvas to work with now.)
@@stevenstillwell-NC even in good/excellent draining soil as little as 1 foot of terrace height with a very heavy rain can cause problems so yes the weep holes would be good and the zig zag pattern would act as the anchoring bars... been there ran into all those problems before with a neighbors retaining wall (the contractor who put it in was from a warmer climate that didn't freeze and didn't install any drainage behind the wall because the soil was sandy and drained fairly well on its own)...even with the sandy soil behind the wall we had an extreme rain storm (dumped several inches of rain on top of 18 inches of snow we already had that spring with 3 days sub zero directly following) because the sandy soil couldn't drain fast enough it was water saturated when it froze and it acted like a hydraulic ram on the back of the retaining wall causing the wall to fail (for regions that freeze it is highly recommended to add a french drain behind the retaining wall in combination with the weep holes) and in colder climates you'll want to increase the thickness of the panels as well as doubling the reinforcing mesh 1 layer being closer than the half way mark to the face of the panel
@@stevenstillwell-NC that's what we always called a "deadman" when we would do landscaping and would put in wooden timber retaining walls. No matter the height of the wall to be built, you are absolutely correct, weep holes and deadmen are absolutely critical to the longevity of the new wall.
This is very helpful
Love it
Thank you sir.
Pro level video
Thank you for showing air crete. This looks interesting and I have a lot of new ideas. Now my husband needs to cooperate. Thanks again.
You are very welcome!
Your videos, skills of presentation, and subject are well done and very interesting. I just wish my skills of follow through were an equal.
amen brother
@@drumsonfire2point0... Sister...;-)
Amen Sister!! I stand corrected!
Very nice and helpful I amm also working on pre engineered structures
Very interesting vid. When i was a roofer dish washing soap was banned. It was a great plastiser that was good for a smooth trowl finish.
It was banned because too much, caused the finished product to crack.
These look pretty cool.
I would recommend adding powdered lime to your curing tank until the solution is fully saturated to prevent the water from sucking lime out of your concrete panels
I work in a lab testing concrete cylinders and I highly recommend excess lime in your tank as well.
@@chadwessels1441 How much lime to add to what size tank? For example a tank of 5' x 5' x 6" deep [12.5 c.ft. water] would need _____# of lime.
Thanks.
@@gaurasells the rule of thumb is to add enough lime until you get some that doesn't dissolve. You need an excess in the solution.
Thank you
Very good and very nice bro
Awesome Video Kent, Well done, 56% lighter you say! And still the finish is excellent, this is good information!
Thanks Jim! I appreciate your support! I did a strength test of these panels here: ruclips.net/video/zU3vlFMsZis/видео.html
What about making fire proof foam crete? Great job on the videos. I am a new subscriber and found yours to be the best, though, the foam maker is a bit expensive.
ARE YOU STILL INVOLVED IN BUILDING WITH AIRCRETE BROTHER? LOVE YOUR SCIENTIFIC APPROACH.
Question... Since this video is a year old, How is the aircrete? Is the crete still good? Can you make a video update of this project? Thank you for sharing this!
Adding arcrylic concrete adhesive/fortifier might be the ticket to preventing cracking.
Interesting content...
Thanks for listening man, even if you never saw my comment thank you :)
Have you tried coating the exterior portion with something like a paint on bed liner material? I wouldn't want it on the inside with vegetables but it might add tremendously to the wear resistance of the exterior.
According to my humble experience, dyes works better with white cement. Through, the finish is always improved with white cement. As your're not building bridges, white vs grey cement have a comparable strength for your purpose.
you can also use it akin to a gelcoat - make just enough white cement with dye to cover the surface of the mould, sprinkle with aggregate/aircete pebbles on top to facilitate adhesion, let dry a bit and pour the filler concrete - that is, if it's worth the hassle to save on white cement and dyes...
@@dushk0 I don't get the point: gelcoat is much expensive than white cement and dyes...
A nice Bill been watching you think I watch 3 videos now my question is have you tried using hydraulic cement as aircrete ? I live by the ocean and I have been trying to find a resourceful water resistant cement that light wait and possibly float?
Hi Kent, I would love to see a video giving an overview over your different boxes built, with weight comparisons, durability evaluations, cost(!) and so on.
And one more thing from an engineering point of view: How would you change the design in order to use the pieces for a compost structure?
Cheers,
Added thickness for strength, weep holes near the bottom (to let the juices run out and da worms crawl in), extra reinforcing mesh/heavier gauge mesh (more strength), using straight concrete(more strength), and anchoring it extra deep/splayed entry (prevents the entry side from bowing out), making each panel 4 lugs high (think double sheer more strength) these are the thing I can think of for building a concrete compost bin/yard materials bin.
@@dodgeme1986truck Just curious, What's 4 lugs high mean?
@@evilroyslade2491 phone cut it 4 lugs high walled
Awesome man! realy enjoy the video, Many thanks from the end of the world!
very good
Air Crete is so interesting to me, i cant wait until we are allowed to incorporate it home construction. Have you tried spraying the molds with a thin coat of standard high strength mix from a hopper gun, to create a smooth hard shell?
Nice. Same principle as using whipped egg whites in cooking. Never would've guessed the surfactants wouldn't cause issues with the curing process though.
Thanks a lot.
Using great stuff or those foam microbeads that go in bean bags and such might be interesting
Kudos for the SI units
thank you love it what about using a denisfier? on the side that you use the weed eater at or use a pva to see if it gives it more streagth you can use titebound 2 with 20% water or so ethier as a substitute for water or as a sealer the idea would make it water proof and stronger by using less water. also i believe that it also brings the cure time way down? or what about rapid set cement? superplasticizer? set control? flow control? water reducers? what about adding some hydrated lime to the mix? what do you think ?
You should try elmers glue and borax to the mix. This will create workable synthetic long chain polymer matrix for the cement bonding. It shouldn't take much.
Devin Heaps would that be a 1:1 ratio?
@@bruceb1433 5:1 glue:borax. Make the polymer first. Then add 1:1 to 1:4 polymer:foaming agent, depending on desired weight. Next add all premixed dry cementitious materials to polymer foam.
@@DevinHeaps what's the foaming agent you mention? SLS?
Hi. Great videos!! What formula would you use to make 2’ x 2’ x 2” paving slabs?
I've come up with the perfect aircrete additive that eliminates the need for agregate and metal reinforcement! I've been making a bunch of it in my shop. It's called exfoliated graphite, and it can almost double the compressive strength of aircrete.
Could this aggregate be used to make a forge?
@@Devastatin777 maybe, the flame test I did yielded less damage than traditional aircrete I've named it UltraAircrete. If I built a forge from it I'd have to keep in mind that I'm was using Portland cement as the binder and that does have its limits. But I've only don't a 50/50 mix, if I increased the exfoliated graphite 70/30 or even 80/20 I think that might help. I'm planning on using it for a rocket stove application but I have to make more exfoliated graphite. I also want to make some shear exfoliated graphene in solution that I could use to replace the water for the slurry and then add the exfoliated graphite and see what improvement's that would yield! Pretty cool stuff.
How much exfoliated graphite do you use? When do you get the stuff?
@@corpsiecorpsie_the_original I used a one to one ratio by volume. I know it seams like alot of exfoliated graphite but it adds no noticeable weight to the Aircrete. Next I would like to hack James Tours method for making graphitized carbon from bio waste. I think it would be a much better and cost effective way to produce high quality carbon to strengthen Aircrete!
@@HergerTheJoyous - thanks.
I'm already making bio char for fun ☺️
What about using concrete mix that has already fiber on it like the quikrete green bags or the blue ones? That mix is really good and has plenty of fiber on it. Great videos!
Muchas gracias por tus grandiosos videos llenos de una fabulosa y detallada explicación he visto muchos referentes del aircrete que dicen que se debe dejar secar por 28 días para que tomen su mejor desempeño. Que dices de esto? Será? Muchas gracias de nuevo por tus vídeos. Saludos
a lo que tengo entendido que es 48 horas , pero me supongo que varia segun el tamaño y grosor de la pieza que se arme
How about adding a fibreglass resin into the mix, not sure how that would work with aircrete mix but it works well with standard mix.
I guess some of the weight advantage would be lost but the added strength could be used to reduce the thickness.
I never knew you could make aircrete, is this what they use when blowing in cement (pool construction)? you could always just use a durable cement on the bottom layer and use the aircrete on the 2nd and up layers
Great!
You're the best at comparing different combinations for these mixes.
1) Did you notice any difference in foam density between your custom foam screen mixer and the Darwin foam generator?
2) Would it be interesting to show a running comparison of total price of a section to weight and durability? ( Should durability imply weight? )
Thank you for being so detailed. I'll give aircrete another shot.
Thanks! The Foam Mate seemed to produced a denser foam. And it makes just the amount you need. The foam screen mixer works pretty well but I would have to make more than I need for a batch. The weight of each is very close though. I might need to do a more detailed and thorough test and comparison.
I'm doing similar project, starting with skirting for my Mobile Home. First test piece is up, 48 x 32" only 1 inch thick. with fiberglass window screen in middle and heavy brown painters paper on back. What kind of release are you using? I had the same concern with trimer line. Was going to put discarded tiles along the bottom. But my free supply fail through. Might be worth buying cheap ones to both decorate and add hard shell against trimers.
I like the idea of using old tile to harden the bottom edge. I am redoing a bathroom, and hate the idea of throwing out the old tile. The tile is coming off with little effort because of water damage.
I want to see how one of these would hold up if you replaced all of the common aggregate with light weight volcanics and chopped glass fiber.
Crear! You are verte Nice. Thank You very much!
Thank you! Cheers!
Would love to see air Crete with Helix in the mix!!!
V nice I wish if u made regidity test
Great content. Thanks for the presentation.
How does air Crete work in hot and arid climates? Like India where summers reach up to 45C.
Looking for an option where i do not have to install air conditioners.
Appreciate your response.
Thanks for the great video. Curious... have you made these with mixing polystyrene in cement?
Nice. I like to rotate the bucket while mixing, changing the effective angle of my mixing.
Yes. That would help. Thanks!
I wish there was premade forms since i don’t know anything about building them 😣 total newbie. Thanks for this video it’s incredible and you give amazing instructions!
Thanks! See my super simple form here: manabouttools.com/super-simple-concrete-garden-boxes-part-1/
Can you use Aircrete as a 2 foot high retaining wall?
Weighing the ingredients is good. I've also seen people scratch circles onto a large tile, to check the liquidity of the finished mix. You pour some of the mix into the center, then time it to see how fast it spreads (i.e., how many of the circles it spreads out to in a given amount of time.) I'm still curious as to why you add perlite though.
I wonder if applying a liquid densifier/hardener to the outside surface would increase the durability for your weed whipper test. Hopefully giving you the lightweight as well as the longevity of th eplanter
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