Old timer at the shop showed me his trick for wet concrete edges that never crumble

I was working a residential driveway pour over on Plum Street last Tuesday, and this guy Joe who must be 70 years old walks over. He watches me messing with the edger for a minute, then says "you gotta wet the tool first, not the concrete." I had been spraying the surface like everyone else. He showed me just dip the edger in a bucket of water with a little dish soap, do the pass, then rinse and repeat. The edges came out smooth as glass, no crumbling at all. Has anyone else tried this or got their own weird trick from an old timer that actually works?

2 comments

2 Comments

lily51114d ago

Oh MAN, yes! I had this EXACT same thing happen to me like two years ago on a patio pour. Some old timer named Walt came out of nowhere and showed me the same dish soap trick. I felt like such a fool spraying the crap out of the concrete and wondering why it kept flaking off. The soap makes the tool glide SO much better and it totally stops that hide-and-seek crumbling on the edge. I swear by it now, I keep a little spray bottle with water and a drop of Dawn in my truck for every job.

betty12613d ago

Gotta be honest, is crumbling concrete edges really that big of a deal? Seems like a lot of fuss over something that sets up fine either way.