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.

This tool is so good! I’ve had it about 2 months and have used it on 2 projects so far. It takes awhile to get the hang of it all but it’s so worth it!

Overall I'm happy with the product, it produced good results. Spend time making sure the points where the mold makes contact with the ground is clear and level, and you'll get a nice result. You'll notice if you don't, although it doesn't make it look horrible it does impact your ability to make a smooth curb. I could have spent more time ensuring a straight line in areas, but it doesn't matter much to me since the neighborhood landscaping has lots of curves and not many straight lines. That's more of a ground prep issue than it is a criticism of the product. The 4:1 ratio of sand / portland worked well for me. Don't make it too wet, I found it easier to fill any gaps / cracks as I went than it was to use cement that was too wet. I would have preferred a shape that is actually a bit less wide, and more of a slant mold. Since you don't dig for this mold, it still sits a bit high for the mower anyways, so a smaller slant mold would have gone quicker (less material) and looked a bit nicer IMO. No matter what, it's better than hiring somebody to do it if you're on any sort of budget and like doing things yourself. I spent roughly 350$ to do about 350ft, it would have cost at least 10x that (or more) to hire someone to lay it down (average costs I found were on the order of 12-15$ / ft in CO for 2017). Sorry, that labor isn't worth 100$/hr. Granted, they probably could make it look slightly better, but certainly not 10x better.

I used this to do about 60 feet of curb in front of my house. This tool is great for the price. You do need to be very careful about the mix you use and the amount of water you add. Also keep in my that this thing is plastic. If you are heavy handed with it, you will be changing the shape of the template. If that scares you, buy a metal one. This tool was super forgiving for curves and radii. I found it easier on curves than the straight runs honestly. The tool did not break down at all for me. It lasted the whole 60 feet and still looks brand new. My Mix Recommendation: 1 bucket sand 0.25 bucket cement Mix the dry ingredients together. Add 2.25 quarts of water Mix in a storage tote and use. You want a texture that almost looks like beach sand. You might think "eh this is too dry" but it's perfect. If you have really hard balls forming like whoopers candy, you have too much cement in your mix. Adding more water will not help you. It's too late. Throw it out and start again. The mix I described above will get you about 4 feet of curb with this template give or take. I had 2" beneath my template to gravel I laid. If you aren't adding depth beneath the template at all, expect to get more than 4 feet. If you have a bigger than 2 inch gap beneath, expect to get a little less. Good luck!

product is not worth the cost, rent a machine if you can find it

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.