Down in Alabama, we’re putting in new dock levelers. Before I was asked to do the job, I’m not sure I had even heard of a dock leveler. In fact, I didn’t really grasp the concept until I actually cut the concrete out, poured it back and saw everything come together.
In preparing to place a new dock leveler in concrete, we have to cut the concrete horizontally 97 inches, up on both side 12 1/2 inches and back into the concrete another 20 inches. Then we cut the back 97 inches again. Once the concrete gets cut out, we have what looks like a couch built right into the concrete. It’s actually a very cool process.
The question for me was “how can I cut 20 inches deep and 12 inches down?”
I found a saw online called the Cut N Break from Husqvarna. It claimed it could cut to a depth of 16 inches… with 8 inch blades! I did some research and all I could find was a video directly from Husqvarna showing the operator cutting a window hole out of a wall. It works with 2, 8 inch blades approximately 3/4 of an inch apart. You can cut to an initial depth of 2 1/2 inches and then you “break” and remove the center concrete. It’s VERY easy. Since there are two of us, I would start cutting 2 1/2 inches deep 97 inches horizontally and once done, I’d start cutting the next one. While I was cutting the next one, the other guy would start breaking off the concrete. Of course, it only takes about 2 minutes to break the concrete.
After comparing the electric version and he gas version, I went ahead a bought the gas version from a company called Tool Fetch, another company I’d never heard of who turned out to be excellent!
I’ll just go ahead and get to the meat of the story. The saw not only works, but it works better than I ever thought it would! It does in fact cut to a depth of 16 inches, and it does so with ease! I’ll admit that cutting horizontally isn’t as easy as cutting up and down, but it does the job rather nicely, and it’s pretty darn quick too. I hope to buy another one in the near future.