Join date: Sep 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Posts: 254
What do you think would be the best size mold to buy. I have a loading platform that I built in Ag Mech Class at school this week and its 8 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 50 inchs high. So I can get 4-5 stones on there but I cant quite pay for 4-5 different molds right now. I have only used a 235lbs atlas stone one time just to try it out. So what do you suggest.
I would say the 18" mold. That will give you a reasonable range of stones. 200-280. Steve sells foam and lead inserts to step the weight up and down, but there are other ways to do this too (no hollow objects, that is a bad idea). I've seen guys add bits of ground rubber to a stone to lighten it up, or dump a bunch of scrap iron into the stone to make it heavier. Just be aware that cement is a liquid so light things float up and heavy things sink.
You can anchor a foam ball by tying it to a string (set at the right height) to the bottom of the mold. Lead weights have to be suspended from above. If you don't do this you can end up with a stone that has a lopsided center of gravity. Not the end of the world, but it can make picking them up fairly interesting as they will tend to roll on you.
Join date: Jan 2006
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 245
IronAbrams wrote:
I heard somewhere that you can go to city maintenance and take old telephone poles (bam instant logs) off their hands pretty easily because they're hard to dispose of- anyone else heard of that before?
if you get a long pole, 12 feet or more you got fingal fingers.
Great exercise , and not one you see around much outside of Met-Rx WSM.
Join date: Oct 2002
Location: Ohio, USA
Posts: 354
Xenia and Cincy- I live in Dayton. I have a 175# atlas stone, 400# loader tire, 8'-10' top section of telephone pole, homemade prowler and some other homemade stuff.
I'm down for getting together for some training occasionally.
Join date: Jul 2008
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Posts: 370
Honestly I have a 170lb atlas stone and a 205lb atlas stone.
Both of them are stolen from parks.
But hey what are they going to do? Take it back to the park? If an officer asks for it back he can take it back if he can lift it into his cruiser. I took them in the middle of the night so I know I wouldn't get caught. They're almost perfect spheres too.
Join date: Aug 2008
Location: Oregon, USA
Posts: 369
swissrugby67 wrote:
A lot of people cannot always get the right equipment for every event so I thought there should be a thread where we can exchange ideas/cheats that could come in useful.
Eg.
No concrete slab to train with?
Use your training partner and kettlebells.
Is that him carrying around Chigishev? (continue with thread)
Join date: Sep 2007
Location: Michigan, USA
Posts: 98
Truth, if you're looking to go REAL cheap on stones, you can do what a guy I used to train with did: Get yourself a physio ball and some plaster and make your own stone molds. He figured out the density of concrete and therefore the volume needed to achieve a certain weight, blew the physio ball up until it achieved that volume, made a plaster mold of it, then filled the mold with concrete. Instant stone.
StonesAreFun wrote:
Truth, if you're looking to go REAL cheap on stones, you can do what a guy I used to train with did: Get yourself a physio ball and some plaster and make your own stone molds. He figured out the density of concrete and therefore the volume needed to achieve a certain weight, blew the physio ball up until it achieved that volume, made a plaster mold of it, then filled the mold with concrete. Instant stone.
That is one way to do it, but I can't help but think that by the time you go through all that trouble over and over again that you might as well have just bought an actual stone mold.
By the way, how do those stones turn out? I've only used "the real deal" so I have nothing to compare it to.
Join date: Jan 2006
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 245
musicma1n1 wrote:
Honestly I have a 170lb atlas stone and a 205lb atlas stone.
Both of them are stolen from parks.
But hey what are they going to do? Take it back to the park? If an officer asks for it back he can take it back if he can lift it into his cruiser. I took them in the middle of the night so I know I wouldn't get caught. They're almost perfect spheres too.
reminds me. I almost got hauled into jail once I was trying to take some stones from off the street, they were being used for landscaping designs, these were natural odd shaped stones, some were very big. at about 11pm or so, the police noticed me and my car, before I knew it there were hald dozen patrol cars there with lights flaring. I talked my way out of a trip to the station by telling the cops I was just trying out to see how heavy if I could lift these stones.
Join date: Jul 2008
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Posts: 370
sumabeast wrote:
musicma1n1 wrote:
Honestly I have a 170lb atlas stone and a 205lb atlas stone.
Both of them are stolen from parks.
But hey what are they going to do? Take it back to the park? If an officer asks for it back he can take it back if he can lift it into his cruiser. I took them in the middle of the night so I know I wouldn't get caught. They're almost perfect spheres too.
reminds me. I almost got hauled into jail once I was trying to take some stones from off the street, they were being used for landscaping designs, these were natural odd shaped stones, some were very big. at about 11pm or so, the police noticed me and my car, before I knew it there were hald dozen patrol cars there with lights flaring. I talked my way out of a trip to the station by telling the cops I was just trying out to see how heavy if I could lift these stones.
That's a good call. I think from now on I'm going to restrict my thievery for training. Especially because I just returned from snagging plywood and PVC for a GHR I'm trying to make.
Question:
What is the one piece of strongman equipment or non, that you wish you had or don't. I'm sure we can work together to figure out how to make it.
Join date: Sep 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Posts: 254
The stones made out of the plaster are actually pretty nice the Georgia's Strongest Man Competition every stone that is used for that show was made by Scott Helms with the Plaster of Paris and concrete approach and they are nice stones. You have to make the plaster very thick though and make sure you get every part of the mold good or the concrete will crack the mold open and you will have two or 3 bags of wasted concrete on the ground. And it only takes 30 min to hour tops to make the mold and after 15-30 min of drying its ready to be used.
Just mix the concrete and I suggest pouring the concrete into the stones slowly I actually use a cup that way the stone is not put under a lot of pressure to quickly. Also Quick Crete 5000 is preferred as it will cure faster and is more likely to hold being dropped from chest height and not breaking.
Bag of Plaster-$15.00
2-3 bags of 80lbs 5000 Quick Crete-4.38 a bag($8.76-$13-14)
One stone $24-$28 dollars a stone.
How do you vibrate the air bubbles out? Will the plaster take being shaken or kicked around a bit?
im_the_truth_ wrote:
The stones made out of the plaster are actually pretty nice the Georgia's Strongest Man Competition every stone that is used for that show was made by Scott Helms with the Plaster of Paris and concrete approach and they are nice stones. You have to make the plaster very thick though and make sure you get every part of the mold good or the concrete will crack the mold open and you will have two or 3 bags of wasted concrete on the ground. And it only takes 30 min to hour tops to make the mold and after 15-30 min of drying its ready to be used.
Just mix the concrete and I suggest pouring the concrete into the stones slowly I actually use a cup that way the stone is not put under a lot of pressure to quickly. Also Quick Crete 5000 is preferred as it will cure faster and is more likely to hold being dropped from chest height and not breaking.
Bag of Plaster-$15.00
2-3 bags of 80lbs 5000 Quick Crete-4.38 a bag($8.76-$13-14)
One stone $24-$28 dollars a stone.
Join date: Sep 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Posts: 254
To vibrate the air bubbles all you need is a small piece of wood or anything I was actually using the handle of the shovel to it... let it set for 10 mins soak up the water and pour more cement. I would not reccommend kicking or shaking the mold to much as I have had two of them break but I believe it was more from not having the mold thick enough than anything.
Join date: Sep 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Posts: 254
To vibrate the air bubbles all you need is a small piece of wood or anything I was actually using the handle of the shovel to it... let it set for 10 mins soak up the water and pour more cement. I would not reccommend kicking or shaking the mold to much as I have had two of them break but I believe it was more from not having the mold thick enough than anything.
Join date: Sep 2008
Location: Georgia, USA
Posts: 254
DCR- I have never done this one but, I have seen and heard of people going to some kind of building its goverment owned but they sell telephone poles. Well you can get the telephone poles and drill holes and hook a type of handle into the wood and you have a log. I am not a 100% sure on how to do it but I will see if I can find a link for you... Also they make good fingle fingers as well.
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