Concrete rock crawling course

[TRIGGER]

Hi there, i'm about to start building a concrete course in my garden in the UK and was wondering if anyone had any pointers on the best way of going about this. I already have the concrete, jute and chicken mesh, but was wondering what the best mixture was for the concrete. I would appreciate any pictures or ideas to help me with this. thanks.

[TSK]

I would figure you may want to coarsen it up with gravel or maybe even sand to provide more traction.

You'll probably want to use wodden framing to design the overall layout first, and maybe add support beams to help suupport all the weight.

You may also wantto try and make it into modular sections so hat you can move the course layout around.

Also, trying doing a search. i'm pretty sure i remember some get threads on custom built course making.

[slowlearner]

When I was laying bricks for a living, we made our mortar at 5:1, 5sand to 1cement. That's too much for this though, I made my "hills" at 15:1. Your crawler is all that going on it, it does'nt need to be person load bearing really.
As far as mixing it, a wheelbarrow is best, failing that a bucket. With a barrow, use a garden hoe to mix it up dry first, move it all to the front of the barrow, add water (about 7ltrs if mix is 15:1) then start chopping at the dry mix, slowly adding your dry mix into the water and mixing it as you go. Don't just try mix it all in one go, it'll end up a big blobby mess. Much easier to do it slowly and evenly. Another trick, add some dishwashing detergent to the water. It acts as a binding agent. If the sand you use is too coarse, the cement and sand will not mix properly and the water will just rise to the top and the solid stuff (sand+cement) will sink to the bottom. Makes it much easier to work with. Mix it to the consistency of mashed potatoes, so you can work with it on the hill and shape it better. Too wet and it won't stay.
Throw in some small rocks with your mix. Bigger rocks can go on later and set in with more mortar. Any left over mortar, add some water to make a wet slurry and slop it on any slick rock faces for more traction.

If your build area is prone to weeds, kill those buggers now. The first area I built has weeds growing thru the cracks which need spraying a lot. Might also help to leave some sort of access hole to man-made hills for spraying weeds under the hill if needed.

I'm gunna get around to posting up some pics oneof these days of my work in progress

[Natedog]

Originally Posted by TRIGGER

Hi there, i'm about to start building a concrete course in my garden in the UK and was wondering if anyone had any pointers on the best way of going about this. I already have the concrete, jute and chicken mesh, but was wondering what the best mixture was for the concrete. I would appreciate any pictures or ideas to help me with this. thanks.

Check out this sweet scaler home course by user "all scaled out"....very nice use of concrete, rocks, dirt, sticks etc!!!

Backyard Scaler Course

[jetboat]

3-4 parts sand to 1 part portland is a great starting point. Ive built several of this style course for expos and stores and thats the mix I start with. You can adjust the grip by changing aggrigates and by adding or subtracting portland. More Portland, slicker surface.

[T-buck]

I found a time lapse of our club doing indoor concrete work.

[It usually runs fine]

chicken wire sucks, trust me go buy the metal lathe or hardware cloth with smaller voids than the chicken wire. Oh and wear some kind of gloves when you are putting this stuff on it will eff your skin up and this is a very tedious job litterally building a mountain one handful at a time.

[TRIGGER]

Thanks for that pictures would be good if anybody has any

[MRCCRAWLER1.9]

hey, nice course!

ive been wanting to build a course like this, for my back yard, does anyone know how much the cost can range between?

im thinking about the size of the concrete rock closest to the camera in the video posted above.