Cement Mixer Reborn

I said in my last post that I was going to work in the cement mixer. Well that turned into a much larger job than expected. I found some cracks in the base of the mixer barrel so I had to remove the barrel and disassemble it in order to get to the cracks. While the barrel was disassembled I cleaned all of the pieces of hardened concrete and lime/clay mixture out as you can see in the picture to the left. The problem here is that now I had lots of exposed metal. So after I was done welding, grinding and cleaning I decided I would give the

barrel a coat of paint to protect the metal.So I gave the inside of the barrel a coat of paint as you can see in the picture. I only had black high temperature paint or gloss white Rustolium paint. So I went with the gloss white. I gave everything a couple of light coats and then one slightly heavier coat before spray painting the other sides.

So the next step was to flip everything over and spray some light coats on the the side. After letting it dry for a while I again sprayed a slightly heavier coat. I left all of the pieces sit and dry for a couple of hours

After letting everything cure and dry for a couple of hours I reassembled the mixer barrel. I also gave all of the bolts and nuts a couple of light coats of the white paint as well. Then I left the barrel to dry and harden.

While the mixer barrel was drying I moved and stacked all of the bricks in the kitchen area so they would be close to where the were going to be installed. That may not look like much but, oh man was I exhausted after getting all of those moved and stacked. Each brick weighs between 8 and 10 LBS and there is a total of 462 bricks there. That's a lot of weight but, I got them all moved.

I did have to replace the bolts, washers and nuts that mount the mixer barrel to the mixer. The old ones were bent, stripped and rusted bad. So with those replaced I bolted the mixer barrel back on to the mixer. I also used some silicone caulking to seal the barrel mounting bolts and nuts both inside and on the outside of the mixing barrel. Since the old original rubber gasket was destroyed when I got the mixer. The silicone makes for a water tight seal so nothing drips out the end and makes a huge mess. I also added a bead of silicone between the mixer barrel and the mounting plate to make sure everything was sealed. Well with a new coat of paint and everything put back together I should be ready for rest of the bricks, floors and counters now. Yes I do realize that the spray paint will only last so long on the inside of the mixer barrel but, it gives the new metal some protection from rust. Beside, it's not very hard to give the inside of the barrel a new coat every so often. Considering the cement mixer was free to begin with I have no complaints. Yes I know I didn't paint the rest of the cement mixer. There was 1 major reason for that. I only had enough paint for the mixer barrel. I know pretty simple reason but, an extremely accurate and understandable one. So now on to more bricks.