Sidewalk Construction - Day 4

Yesterday was a big milestone for our sidewalk project - concrete was poured! We raced back after the Blue Hen 5K so we could witness the pour. Kudos to Rich Camaroto of Camocrete for rescheduling the concrete truck so we could watch after our race.

Immediately I noticed the color of the concrete. After seeing my share of concrete at work, it was a little bizarre to see brown concrete. Actually, the color is "sandstone", which is the tint we chose for our project. Rich and Jesus worked hard throughout the day to place, finish and stamp the concrete. Here are a few pictures.

Rich rakes the concrete into place.
Jesus runs a wheelbarrow full of concrete to the new patio.
Rich "vibrates" the concrete into place.
Rich and Jesus screed the patio concrete.
Rich finishes the sidewalk concrete as Jesus works to place more concrete ahead of him.
Jesus uses an edger to finish the patio concrete.
Jesus uses a steel trowel to finish the steps.
Here are their stamping tools. The "skins" are used to add extra texture. The ashlar slate stamps are underneath the skins. Also note the bucket of stamp release powder (dark brown with charcoal color), joint chisel, roll tool for joints and paint roller (for smoothing joints).
Rich throws the colored release powder on top of the finished concrete.
After about an hour, it's time to stamp. The compass is the first stamp to be placed. Rich did his best to center it on the patio.
The slate stamps are placed around the compass.
Rich tamps the stamp pattern into the concrete. The concrete hardened quicker than expected, so it was a race against time!
Rich uses a fiberglass trowel to finish the concrete steps before stamping.
After the steps were stamped, it's time to put up the caution tape. Rich told me a story about how he learned the hard way that you should put caution tape around the entire project. He learned his lesson when a UPS guys walked all over the fresh concrete on a previous project. Rich had put caution tape only near the sidewalk entrance, but not all around the project. Needless to say, it was a painful job to fix.
Here is the pride of our project - the compass! I kid Cendy that she needs all the help she can get with her sense of direction...so now she can have a daily reminder!
After a few days of concrete curing time, Rich will saw cut control joints into the concrete. Control joints are necessary to control the location of cracks in the concrete. During the next sunny day, they'll remove forms, powerwash the concrete to remove the extra release powder, stain the compass to add contrasting color and then finally add a coat of clear concrete sealant.