Daily Archives2017 January 01

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If you’re looking to pour your own concrete driveway, or if you are shopping around for quotes from contractors, you may be confused as to how thick your driveway needs to be. This article will discuss driveway thickness.

Weight

How thick the concrete required for a driveway is based on the weight of the vehicles that are going to be using it. Most households with cars, trucks or SUVs can suffice with a concrete slab that is four inches thick. This is based on vehicles weighing 10,000 lbs. or less. To give an example, an average SUV or pickup truck weighs between 4000 and 6000 lbs, and even a boat on a trailer generally isn’t more than 8500.

Where you will see the need for a thicker driveway is if you plan to have heavier vehicles on it. For the average household, that larger vehicle is often an RV. Most RVs start at 10,000 lbs. and go up to 30,000 (which doesn’t necessarily take into account extra weight loaded into it). So if you are looking to find a place for your personal RV, you’ll want to go up to 5 or 6 inches of thickness for your concrete driveway.

Thicker Better for Preventing Cracking?

Concrete will crack. Period. However, thicker doesn’t always mean you are getting a guarantee of less cracking. Generally, cracking is caused by other factors that can relate to thickness, but are not caused by the thickness. For example, as mentioned above, if too much weight is put on a thinner concrete driveway, yes, it can ultimately lead to cracking. Another major cause of cracking is not having a solid base beneath the driveway. Concrete does its best on solid surfaces that have no movement. In areas where the ground is mostly sand or clay, severe cracking is more likely to happen. And, in such cases, a thinner poured driveway would suffer faster than a thicker one. However, a good contractor will know how to lay a proper base to prep the land for the concrete slab, so whether the driveway is four inches or five, precautions have been taken to protect it from excessive cracking. Likewise, the use of wire mesh or rebar (reinforcing bar) in the laying of the concrete will hold the integrity of the concrete longer, regardless of the thickness of the slab.

Price Differences

Although pricing for the job itself has many variables and can fluctuate across the country, it is approximately 20% more concrete cost to go from a four inch thick slab to a five inch thick slab. However, adding that extra inch boosts your driveway’s weight capacity by 50%.

If you do go with the four inch thickness, you’ll save money because that thickness doesn’t require rebar to strengthen it. Most contractors use the above mentioned wire mesh that is considerably cheaper and still very affective.

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Source by Stefano Grossi

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There are several easy and inexpensive ways to customize a standard tech deck fingerboard.

1.Paint Deck: One of the easiest things to do is get a piece of sand paper or an emery board and lightly scratch of the image on the fingerboard deck. After the deck is smooth and the old graphic is removed,acrylic paint can be applied.

2.Reshape Deck: A standard finger skateboard can be reshaped using a heat source. First remove the grip tape then lightly heat the deck making the plastic soft. Using your fingers bend and shape the board to create higher kicks, and curves.

3.Paint the Trucks: Painting the trucks is a great way to customize a fingerboard and make it really stand out. Take the top and bottom trucks apart, lightly sand them. Carefully paint all parts of the truck except for the threaded portion where the wheels attach.

4. Paint Bolts/Screws: Painting the micro screws and tiny bolts is often over looked on custom fingerboards.The tiny parts can be painted by tying them to a piece of thread and dipping them into the desired paint color.

5. Dye Wheels: The wheels that come with tech decks can be dyed using regular fabric dyes. Follow the manufacturers instructions for using the dye. But leave the wheels in for longer than is suggested to insure a brighter color.

6. Change Wheels: Anybody serious about customizing their fingerboard will eventually look into getting new wheels. Completely custom after market wheels can be bought that feature high tech micro ball bearing that increase the speed.

7. Add Risers: Risers are the small plastic pieces that sit under the bottom of the truck. Adding risers can increase the pop of the board making tricks easier.

8. Change Bushings: Tech decks come with hard plastic bushings that do not allow for much give. Soft PVC bushings can be found in a variety of colors and add a great customized look.

9. Add Pivot Cups: Pivot cups are used when the contact between the the kingpin on the top truck and the master hole on the bottom truck are not connecting. The pivot cup covers the gap between the two and holds the truck firmly together. They come in a variety of colors.

10.Custom Grip Tape: customizing the grip tape on a fingerboard is easy. Using a pencil draw out a design on the paper side of the tape. Cut of the design arranging different colors to form different patterns.

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Source by Bobby Alexander