Concrete power trowel - Karachi

power trowel (also known as a "power float", "helicopter" or "trowel machine") is a piece of light construction equipment used by construction companies and contractors, to apply a smooth finish to concrete slabs.

Power trowels differ in the way they are controlled:

Ride-on power trowels are used by an operator sitting on a seat upon the machinery, controlling the power trowel with the necessary buttons.
Walk-behind power trowels are used by an operator walking behind the machine
Operation

Both walk-behind and ride-on operate on the same principle. A spinning disc (either a disc or 'pan' or blades. The image of the ride-on Power Float has the disc/pan fitted to both rotors) has pressure applied to one area where the additional friction of the blades against the floor moves the Power Float in the opposite direction of the rotor blades.

The machine is steered by applying the weight of the machine at a certain segment of the rotor arc, which will take the machine in the desired direction. With the 'walk behind' model, the handle is pressed or lifted. This puts weight on the rear or front of the rotor which will move it from side to side, and with judicious positioning of the handle, forward or backward motion is possible using this side-to-side control.

With the 'ride on' model, there is a control for each blade that fulfills the same role. There is either a pole or hydraulic control that fulfills the same principle as the walk-behind but the ride-on differs in that its control of rotor direction is like that of a helicopter.

To operate them: start the engine, adjust throttle control and pull in the clutch lever which spins the rotor. They all have a 'dead man' control for the clutch, that is, the machine stops the rotors when the lever is released.

Then the trowel is glided over the surface at different periods during the concrete 'set', starting with a flat disc or 'pan' that fits over the rotor blades, which brings up the 'fat' of the concrete while filling depressions and removing high spots. Later the blades are used at an increasingly sharp angle until the surface is hard, flat, and starts shine.

Edges to the bay, or areas the Power Float can't access, are finished with a hand trowel. Newer Power Floats have blades with curved ends that are flush with the wire skirt so the edges can be troweled, plus the blades don't hit or snag objects.

The walk-behind is cheaper to buy, lighter to move, and the user can see what the discs do while the disc is at that area. But it is one disc and the big ones can 'give your abs a work out' as you try stop their motion at the end of each pass.

The ride-ons have two rotors so one can theoretically double the area trowelled; they also tend to have more blades per rotor. But you are looking in front at where you are going, not at what surface the machine has left leaving you with the possibility of picking up defects 'next time around'. They are expensive, heavier to move and only pay for themselves on big areas, but they are very comfortable and easy to use

There is a trend to use walk-behind machines, or versions of the same but designed to be light weight and using pneumatic air via hoses instead of a heavy power plant and fuel, for the use in thin epoxy coatings and/or thin coloured decorative coatings

REGARDS

SHAH OMER SALEEM

0334-3669422

M/S LUCKY ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC COMPANY

Suit No C-71-D, 24th Commercial Street, Phase-II (EXT) D.H.A

KARACHI

TEL: 021-35312095

FA: 021-35312061

E-MAIL: omer_266@hotmail.com