concrete lock-on tips (following Parliament Square blockade)

If they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Lock-on after drillingIf they took only 20 mins to demol­ish each lock­on then your con­crete does­n’t sound up to scratch. Don’t mean to brag but a sim­i­lar lock on I once built took them 6 hours to demol­ish with jack ham­mers and angle grinders. In future you need to include some met­al rein­forc­ing mesh or crinkly rebar rods, either off­cuts of the prop­er stuff from builders skips or sawn up super­mar­ket trol­leys are ok. Includ­ing met­al mesh serves not only to bind the con­crete togeth­er but it spreads the shock­wave from jack ham­mers through­out the mate­r­i­al rather than allow­ing it to be con­cen­trat­ed at the chis­el tip. Also good to include some short lengths of blue 6mm rope which pre­vents the forces of dark­ness from being able to sep­a­rate the chunks of frag­ment­ed con­crete which real­ly winds them up. The oth­er real­ly impor­tant things are to use fresh­ly bought cement, be sure your con­crete mix is very thor­ough­ly mixed — absolute­ly no sandy or cemen­ty streaks vis­i­ble — and then poured in less than 20 mins or so and when pour­ing it, don’t do it all in one go but ram or tamp (jig­gle and shake) it in thor­ough­ly into the con­tain­er in stages with the end of a bit of 4 x 2. Your con­crete looks like it has voids in it which is always a con­sid­er­able weak­ness. Good luck with future coura­geous actions.

Nev­er ever use ordi­nary “build­ing” or soft sand which is only used for brick­lay­ing and will make very crumbly con­crete indeed. You should be using all in bal­last which is sharp sand already mixed with peb­bles. In some parts of the coun­try — most­ly the north — you can’t get this so will have to mix your own using SHARP sand and mixed size peb­bles from pea size up to the size of brazil nuts or so.