New GSW Gunite Products: Material Hopper Screen & Gunite Floats

The Gunite Shotcrete Warehouse (GSW) is always glad to expand the available tools and solutions to our valuable gunite contractor customers and we are especially proud to offer new product innovations to the gunite industry.

Gunite Machine Hopper Material Screen

Gunite Machine Hopper Screen

Benefits of the GSW Material Screen

The material screen for gunite machines has been created as an innovation for the gunite industry. The design is well thought out to consider the needs of the gunite contractor on the jobsite in a real world and real time situation. This consideration includes 1) the type of gunite materials used in gunite construction and especially gunite pool building and 2) the flow rate needed to match the production rate of the typical gunite machines in use today. As gunite materials are loaded into the hopper, the GSW gunite screen design allows fine sands and larger clumps of sand and cement to pass through at a rate to match the high production gunite machine output.

The durable steel GSW material screen is designed with specific diameter round holes that allow the gunite material to pass through. Most often the gunite materials originate in a gunite batch plant. The gunite machine operator often does double duty by operating the batch plant and the gunite machine on a typical gunite jobsite. As the operator loads the gunite from the batch plant, the dry material pours or dumps out onto the top of the material hopper screen and passes through the holes in the screen. The type of gunite materials in the industry are much different than concrete materials although the finished gunite surface when dried is basically considered to be "concrete." Gunite materials contain no large aggregates, meaning topically nothing over 3/8" pea rock size. Gunite materials typically include fine sand and cement in a proportion determined to provide the finished strength of the concrete . The purpose of the material screen is to allow this material to pass through and down into the gunite machine hopper while blocking any larger aggregates or debris from entering the gunite machine hopper. This debris could include large dried concrete clumps or large caked on wet cement pieces that have accidentally made their way into the batch plant.

""The best thing is the shaker bolts right to it the ones with the screen wear out too easy and you have to replace non stop" - Travis

So, the GSW material screen is there to keep out larger aggregates or large clumps of "who knows what!" that have gotten into the material mixture but the screen needs to allows the materials to flow fast enough down into gunite machine hopper to keep up with the production, ie output, of the gunite machine. Gunite contractors do not want to wait for the material to slowly sift through the hopper and do not want to see the material building up in a pile on top of that screen either.

The GSW screen design allows gunite material to flow through and into the hopper at a rate to match the high output of the gunite machine.

The gunite machine screen must allows the material to flow through or else the gunite machine operator may simply remove the screen and just deal with any larger aggregates that happen to come through. Gunite machine outputs range according to the project. For example in gunite repair projects, the gunite machine used may be designed to output approx 6 cubic yards per hour. In gunite construction projects, such as gunite pool construction, the gunite crews expect the gunite machine to output as much as 15 cu yards per hour. At these higher production rates, the gunite material in the gunite machine hopper is filling and emptying at a fairly fast and constant rate. The GSW screen design allows gunite material to flow through and into the hopper at a rate to match the high output of the gunite machine.

The GSW gunite screen is an innovation because it has been designed to allow for the type of gunite materials in use today and to provide a flow rate to match the production of the gunite machine

Gunite Floats

Also recently added to the GSW product line to complement the range of finishing tools already in the catalog: GSW Gunite floats!

Gunite floats are used by gunite contractors to level ridges, fill voids, and smooth gunite surfaces.

These little money makers are simple yet powerful! The GSW gunite float is designed to be very lightweight so it can be used to lightly skim over the top of a wet gunite construction surface. For that reason, the wood used in the construction is typically one that is known to be lightweight such as mahogany or redwood. It's a simple design with rectangular surface and handle but powerful in the fact that gunite contractors often use the gunite float to put final touches on the construction or pool surface giving it that truly finished quality. The gunite contractor can wrap up their portion of the material application and provide a professional finished job by using the GSW gunite float. The gunite float is often the last tool used in the job before the crew calls it a day. GSW offers various sizes and is available to ship around the world.

To see the complete range of GSW gunite machine parts and gunite finishing tools, visit the GSW gunite parts page to learn more!