Sakrete Days

It’s a great ad. The old duffer out there in his coveralls looks like he’s confused about how much gravel and how much cement to put into each batch of concrete he’s making. Then he adds too much water and has to add some more sand and gravel and a little cement to get it to come out right and oh, gosh! This is hard! What a mess! In the second frame the old duffer is smiling and in control. He only has to dump a bag of Sakrete in his wheelbarrow, add water, and presto! It’s the perfect mix. Ahh! He even has a proper tie on now, along with his suit. No muss, no fuss! Duffers everywhere love Sakrete!

First developed in Cincinnati in 1936

First developed in Cincinnati in 1936, Sakrete spread to all parts of North America over the years, but we didn’t use it at our house. In the 1960s I watched my dad mix his own mortar for laying brick and block. I was even allowed to mix it the hard way, using a round-point shovel as a measure. With his careful supervision and occasional correction, I was able to do it. He was self-taught, but I saw him set up his strings, pour footers, and do admirable masonry work. That work is still standing today.  Concrete requires sand, gravel, cement, and water. Mortar requires sand, cement, lime, and water. All of these materials must be in the correct proportion if the final product is to last. It’s easy to see why somebody would invent a product like Sakrete. Making your own concrete or mortar is quite the operation. Materials needed on site include sand, gravel, cement, and, if mixing mortar, lime. To get the materials to the site requires a delivery dump truck. The trucking has always cost more than the materials, so there’s an added cost for delivery. It’s possible to get materials in one’s own truck, but the payloader guy at the gravel pit has to have a delicate touch when he puts a bit of sand in the back of the pickup. Dropping it in fast or dropping too much will squat the truck right down to the axle and cause the tail pipe or bumper to drag on the road. A truck’s frame can actually be bent if too much goes in too fast. Separate trips to the gravel pit are required for each type of material. One for the sand. One for the gravel. One to the lumber yard for the cement and lime. Unloading has to be done after each trip. From a pickup, that unloading happens with a shovel. Clean out the bed. Go for the next trip, unload it, clean out the bed. You get the idea, I’m sure.  Then the materials are on the ground and you’re ready to mix. If mixing small batches, it’s back to the wheelbarrow. If you’re lucky and well capitalized, you might have a portable cement mixer. Shovel the right proportions of materials up into the mixer (minding the dust from the cement bag), add the right amount of water, turn the mixer using the electric motor, then dump the small batch into the wheel barrow, wheel it to the form, dump it, make another batch in the mixer, and so on. Repeat until the form is full. A wheelbarrow full of soupy concrete is top heavy and treacherous to operate even on a smooth surface. If you use a mixing pan that sits on the ground, you want to make sure it’s close to the form. It’s no fun dragging the loaded mixing pan across the ground to get it close enough to dump. Been there, done that. 

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Sakrete was a laborsaving product that still required plenty of labor

Don’t forget to puddle the edges with a thin stick to avoid ending up with “cottage cheese” showing on the sides after it sets up. From these experiences there came new vocabulary and some lessons. I saw my dad and then other masons use mortar from a board with a handle underneath it. You know, a mortarboard. He used trowels and edgers and floats. Professional masons often wore a heavy apron for tools, string, and measuring tapes. I discovered that my dad was a member of the masonic lodge. I began to understand their symbols better because they were the tools actual masons used when laying brick and stone.  I learned what a hod carrier did, carrying bricks and mortar in a metal holder called a hod up ladders to where the masons were laying bricks.  I decided then and there I would be terrible at a job like that. Look at the muscles. If he thought I wanted to take his job away from him, he’d probably throw me off the scaffolding I had just climbed with white knuckles, then drop the bricks on my head one at a time. So I never aspired to be a hod carrier, and I have never regretted that decision. It brings a whole new respect for the ready-mix concrete truck. Think of the job of pouring a slab requiring four cubic yards of concrete. An 80-lb bag of concrete mix like Sakrete makes .6 of a cubic foot of concrete. To put it a different way, there are 27 cubic feet of concrete in a cubic yard. You’d have to mix 45 80-lb bags of Sakrete to equal a single cubic yard. The four cubic yard slab would take 180 bags of Sakrete. Your wheelbarrow will have quite a workout that day, and you’ll have the crust of concrete on it for years afterward unless you wash it out about 40 times while you’re mixing water into it with a garden hoe.  Sakrete was a laborsaving product that still required plenty of labor. 

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Get some Sakrete, and make something!

I first became more familiar with Sakrete working at the old Nelson Hardware in Boston, Indiana. We always picked up bagged materials like sand, cement, Sakrete, and water softener salt using the box bed delivery truck. We went for these items where they had forklifts to load pallets on to the truck. If there were two pallets, the forklift operator would set the first one on, then push it forward in the truck so the second pallet could be set on behind it. Back at the store, however, there was no forklift. The Sakrete and softener salt was kept up off the ground in a long shed behind the store. To move it from the truck to the shed took strong backs. We picked up one bag at a time, holding it against our belts to walk carefully across to where it was stacked. The pallet nearest the back of the truck wasn’t too bad, but the pallet further in was very bad. We stepped up into the truck, picked up a bag, carried it to the back, stepped down to the floor level of the shed, then carried it to where it was stacked. It was bearable in the winter time, but people don’t use Sakrete in the winter time very much. On a warm summer day it was misery to unload a truck. Only slightly better was a customer coming in on a warm summer day needing twenty bags. Then the loading procedure was reversed, picking up the bags in the stuffy shed and carrying them out to put on the customer’s truck. Did I mention that Sakrete came in 50-lb and 80-lb bags? Those 80 pounders were killers. Portland cement came in 94-lb bags. Ouch. And yes, some people have you put the bags in the trunk of a car. Good luck with that when you get home, and call somebody else.  When it was time to unload the delivery truck, I always thought to myself, “Gosh!” or something like that. When it was unloaded, especially if by someone else, I’d look at the stacks and say, “Ahh!” The laws of work applied here, especially. Never lift it higher than necessary, and when picking it up, grab the highest ones first. With luck, they’ll be at waist height already. Let the other guy pick up the ones on the bottom row if he doesn’t care. Later on, the earthy ad man at Sakrete headquarters came up with the slogan Get some Sakrete, and make something! I like that attitude. Get up off yer duff and get to work! Cast a statue of a hog, make your own grave marker, or pour a slab to go underneath that load of patio stone that’s been deteriorating in the corner of the yard these last many years. You probably need a smokehouse or a bomb shelter or a new cistern. Maybe the old wooden steps have rotted enough to need replacing. Whatever the job, just get busy doing it! Make plans, build a sturdy form, brace it correctly, and then calculate how much concrete you’ll need. Make sure the ground is dry and firm. Then the final step is to call the ready mix concrete place and tell them to bring it to the site. Ahh!