Curb It Yourself

I've now laid about 85' of curb with this tool (between 2 projects). It works as advertised, and the youtube videos are helpful to learn the technique. Don't kid yourself into thinking this will be easy though. It's a lot of hard work, and it does take some time. The first task is to mix up the dry products. I use 4 parts sand to 1 part cement, by weight. This blend works great. I find that you need 10 lbs of dry mix per foot of curb. It's important that the ground you're laying the curb on is flat. It doesn't need to be level, but if there are bumps they will definitely show in the finished curb. Mixing the concrete is probably the hardest part of the job. There are lots of ways to do it, but I found using an electric concrete mixer in a 5 gallon bucket works best for me. I mix up about 30 lbs of concrete, lay it, repeat. The consistency of the mixed concrete is crucial to your happiness. Think of it like building a sand castle. You will probably be surprised at how dry you "think" the mix is when it's perfect. The actual laying of the curb will take some practice, but it's not rocket science. Concrete is forgiving and you're not in a huge rush. One piece of advice... buy a buddy a case of beer to mix the concrete while you're laying it. I found that I'm mixing about half the time, and laying the curb the other half of the time. If you can get a constant feed of concrete... you'll be able to build curb incredibly fast. More advice... buy some long, sturdy rubber gloves. For my first project I had standard length gloves. As I was reaching into the bucket to get concrete, inevitably small pieces of cement would fall inside my gloves. That gets miserable in a hurry, and cement is quite basic so it will agitate your skin over time.Bottomline… if you don't have a bazillion feet of curb to lay, and you don't mind breaking a sweat... this is a pretty good tool for laying nice (cheap) curbs.

The five star rating has a lot to do with the $$ saved! I am sure that a professional would have charged about $8-$10 per foot, while my cost was around $1! As for the performance, well it IS NOT as easy as the YouTube video makes it look for a DIY homeowner that is not a concrete guy.That said, this is still a good buy and very doable as long as you are prepared for the labor and effort that will go into to process. The toughest part, mixing concrete without a mixer.My first job was small, or so I thought, about 25’ of curb, so I figured I would do it by hand, no mixer. With a 47lb bag of Portland Cement and 50lb bags of Play Sand off I went. Since I was doing this by hand I figured that the best way to divide the Portland was by weight. So I got a bucket ant put 11 - 12lbs of Cement in it. I leveled it in the bucket and marked the level in the bucket. I then added the 12 lbs of Cement to 50 lbs (1 bag) of playsand and began dry mixing by hand.Once I had mixed the Cement and sand together I thought through my next concern. A lot of reviews made it clear that you want to work with a mixture that wasn’t too wet, so I surmised that I need to work with small batches at a time to avoid the concrete getting too dry on me. So I would mix one shovel full of concrete with water in a bucket and go to work. This made for a process that was a lot more time and my consistency from batch to batch was varied. This produced different textures and therefore different looks after drying.My look after drying was various “finishes” on the surface. In addition, there were a couple of spots where the concrete mix was too wet and the curb “dropped” down a bit. So, my solution, I mixed a batch of VERY WET concrete (almost concrete “soup”) and applied a top coat to the entire curb! The result turned out to look like one consistent curb and I am very satisfied with the results.I will be doing more curb, but this time I will rent a mixer that can handle one 47 lb bag of Portland and four 50 lb bags of Play Sand at once. I understand the consistency now and will make things a lot easier on myself. Once I got the hang if it, it flowed.Again, I am glad I made the purchase and the commitment to do the job myself. After working with a mixer I will post a review again.Good luck, I hope this review helps!

The product is great. The process is much harder than explained. I had one section of curb that was BEAUTIFUL! Smooth, solid, and very pleasing. The other sections though were inconsistent, bumpy, crumbling, pitted, and cracking. Which it didn’t start breaking down for about a year. So I didn’t know I wasn’t doing a good job until the next season. I ended up tearing it all up and putting down no dig edging.

I am blown away at how easy this is! First, get yourself a cement mixer...it will make your project so much easier!!!! It takes a little patience and a bit of time but so worth it! I want to go back and replace all of my other edging! It looks amazing! After it dried a bit...just go over it with a broom. It smooths off the surface nicely! It is not flawless but what is? Cost effective and anyone can do it! You have plenty of working time even in the heat. I highly recommend!

It's a good idea but the plastic starts wearing out almost immediately, stress cracks appeared after my 2nd 4ft run, and the plastic also wears thin to make the screws scratch the concrete. I fanned out the holes a little wider and deeper to sink the screw heads more. All in all it's an okay product but it not going to last long. It should've been made out of rolled metal I would have gladly paid for the higher quality.

I'm not going to pretend that this was easy and not time consuming but even so, it was totally worth it and I couldn't be happier with the results. This curb in the picture is 55' of curb and took 5.5 hours. It's definitely tedious but the form works exactly as advertised IF...>>>IF<<< you follow the directions and watch the videos on their website. The real key is getting the right consistency of the cement. What you want is concrete that is just like sand that you would build a sand castle with at the beach. It should not be able to flow. With a little patience and learning the technique ahead of time you will be happy with the results. Good luck!DISCLAIMER: If you're one of those people who is 0% handy to begin with, maybe just hire someone to do it.