Make sure you are cutting joints soon enough.
Cutting lines in concrete driveway.
Measure to the left and to the right of the chalk line 2 inches and snap two additional chalk lines.
Once you ve laid out the joints to be cut mark them using a chalk line.
A good rule of thumb is to make your cut the thickness of your concrete.
Using a metal jointing tool the.
If your cut doesn t need to be exact use a cold chisel and hand sledge to cut the concrete.
These are called control joints.
In hot weather concrete might crack if joints are not cut within 6 12 hours after finishing concrete.
The joints can also be installed as soon as the concrete hardens by using a diamond saw that cuts the line.
A circular saw with a masonry blade can also be used to either score or completely cut through the block.
If you re using water cutting equipment make sure that the water is running all the way down to the blade.
The lines act as pre weakened stress points that encourage the concrete to crack at these locations.
Score the length of the cut three or four times with the chisel.
What kind of saw to use.
Professionals who install concrete driveways install crisp tooled lines in the slabs.
When you re cutting concrete that is already poured and finished use a chalk line to mark the region.
Get a friend to hold one end while you hold the other and run the line over the region to be cut.
You ll ideally run a trickle of water.
Factors such as curing techniques slab thickness slab length and base type must be analyzed before selecting where joints should be cut.
When you are looking for saws to do relief cuts make sure that it is a down cut.
The outside lines indicate where the concrete should be cut.
In this condition if you don t want to use a grooving tool to cut joints there are early entry dry cut lightweight sawsthat can be used almost immediately after finishing.
One thing to be aware of before we go further.
Don t force a blade into a cut.
If of your slab s thickness doesn t reach 1 make sure you still cut at least a 1 depth.
How to saw cut concrete.
Apply the line as thick as possible.
Step 2 place the tip of a walk behind concrete saw blade over the center of one line.
Designate the area of finished concrete to be cut using chalk lines.