Hot take: I found out my trowel blade angle was off by 10 degrees for 5 years

I was watching a video from a guy in Phoenix last week and he showed a digital angle gauge reading on his trowel. It said 10 degrees. I always just eyeballed it, figured it looked flat enough. Turns out I was dragging the heel way too hard on every straight edge pass, making micro ridges I never saw until the sealer went down. Found an old article from ACI that said even 5 degrees off can reduce surface density by 15%. Now I'm wondering how many jobs I messed up without knowing. Anybody else ever check their trowel angle with a gauge or am I overthinking this?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_green524d ago

Even 5 degrees off can reduce surface density by 15%" - man, I get why that sounds scary, but I gotta wonder if that's one of those lab numbers that don't really translate to real world conditions. Like, how many of those 15% customers actually came back complaining? I've been doing flatwork for a while and I've never checked my trowel angle with anything but my eyes, and I've had maybe two complaints about surface issues in the last ten years. Seems like a lot of worry over something your hand probably compensates for without you thinking about it. Maybe I'm sloppy but I think people get too caught up in perfect measurements when concrete is just a messy material anyway.

amy_anderson3d agoMost Upvoted

Hold on, you mean to tell me @rowan969 actually shelled out money for a digital gauge just to measure his trowel angle? That's like buying a level to hang a picture of your dog. I bet his next purchase is a protractor for spreading peanut butter. But hey, if it makes him feel better knowing his surface density is exactly 15% higher than mine, I'm happy for him. What's next, a micrometer for checking the thickness of your float?

rowan9694d ago

Yeah, get a cheap digital gauge from Harbor Freight. Saved my ass after a few bad burn jobs.