Concrete Saws, Early-entry cuts for decorative concrete
Concrete saws increase productivity and design options. Crack control is a contractor's biggest headache, and green concrete saws are the miracle cure. They allow a contractor to do expansion cutting before the concrete has set long enough to start cracking. It's as close as you get to a guarantee that you're going to control crackage.
by John Strieder
Tony Hawk isn't the only southern Californian to start a revolution with a skateboard.
Sometime in the early 1980s, a concrete contractor named Ed Chiuminatta pulled the wheels off a board and attached them to a Skilsaw. The result? A saw blade that could roll across green concrete, slicing a control joint in a fraction of the time it would take to carve the groove by hand.
Today, Chiuminatta's company, Soff-Cut International Inc., is the leading manufacturer of green concrete saws — machines designed specifically to cut concrete before it dries.
Kelly Dickinson, sole proprietor of Superior Concrete & Masonry in Riverside, Calif., says that 10 years ago most jointing was done by hand. "At last some people are starting to convert over to different things," says. (He should know; he has helped Soff-Cut test and fine-tune saws for years.)
Crack control is a concrete contractor's biggest headache, Dickinson says, and green concrete saws are the miracle cure. They allow a contractor to do expansion cutting before the concrete has set long enough to start cracking. "It's as close as you get to a guarantee that you're going to control crackage," he says.
Early-entry saw cuts are faster, easier and look better, states Jim Johnson, an engineer who designed and improved the Robo-Kut saw, which is being marketed worldwide by N-E-D Corp. "After the concrete has set there for a day, most cracks have already started," he explains. "The sooner you can start the better."
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