Atecon Rebar Spacers and Construction Accesories

11/06/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, the leader in rebar spacer manufacturing in Latin America since 1995. In this video we want to give you a quick intro about our Formwork Platen Holsters.

Installation is very simple, just cut the holster roll at the desired length, which in this case will be the thickness of the Wall being poured, insert your metal plate into it and you're done, once the Wall is dry the width delimiting plates will be easily recovered by pulling on them.

For all builders using metal or aluminium formwork systems, the metal platens áre a well known ítem, they hold the Wall thickness constant by holding the formwork's parallel all the time

The problem a used to be that when the concrete dried up these plates were stuck inside the Wall, creating the necessity to cut the exposed ends of them and of course loosing these elements knowing that they are completely reusable.

With our platen holster this problem is solved thanks to its thick expanded polyethylene which eliminates any chance of the platen getting stuck to your Wall.

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at www.rebarspacerchair.com

Para nuestra web en español por favor visite www.separadoresatecon.com

30/05/2019

In this video we like to show you the huge difference in compression resistance of our mortar made rebar chair vs common plastic spacers
In the first test we compare bar chair for floors with 50mm cover height.
You can observe initially that an external fissure forms due to the pressure applied, but our spacer are still intact up to 100psi, measurement at which it fails completely.

As you can see Plastic bar chairs start to deform almost immediately, not guaranteeing the correct cover height set for your floor, which constitutes a serious structural failure, if we continue to apply pressure the spacer collapses completely and no longer can function as a reinforcement Steel support.

The result is pretty clear the resistance for these types of concrete spacers are 5.2 times greater than plastic supports, which allows you to use less of these elements per square meter without any risk of them breaking.

In our second test we compared bar supports for foundations with a cover height of 30mm.

Let's keep in mind that foundations are usually built over natural terrain, that is the reason why the base of these spacers has to be wider and more stable, also the rebar diameter used for foundation reinforcement is usually thicker than in other types of concrete structures, therefore the spacer to be used must have a decent load bearing capacity. On the other hand in the first test we can observe that spacers for floor slabs have sharpened edges on which they stand so that they don't leave any marks on the concrete poured, so that you don't have to patch the floors afterwards to keep an aesthetically pleasing finish, the smaller contact points translate into lower load bearing capability.

The result is what you would expect, the resistance achieved by a concrete spacer is 4.2 times greater that a plastic one, they are simply no match for the compression capability of concrete made supports.
In the third and final test we try again spacers designed specifically for foundation, but this time with a 50mm cover height, the type of plastic spacer used is also changed for one with supposedly better stability and resistance.

Once again we see how the concrete bar chair developed a fissure in its exterior, but is still intact for up to 224psi, on the other hand the plastic chair reaches only 22psi before deforming completely, this means you could load up to 10 times more Steel rebars without the necessity of using additional units, due to this in a large foundation savings can be considerable.

As you could observe all along the test we applied pressure up to the point where the gauge reaches the máximum reading in psi, at this point mortar spacers crack and plastic ones keep deforming without increasing the pressure reading.

11/05/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, the leader in rebar spacer manufacturing in Latin America since 1995. In this video we want to introduce to you our adjustable rebar caps for Steel down from a half an inch up to one and a quarter inch thick Steel bars.

Our exclusive plastic clip fastening design assures a good hold onto the rebar and also guarantees a true interchangeability from thick bars again to thinner rebars, as we will demonstrate later

Now for a few design characteristics that make our caps stand out from the rest, the first one is as the competitors caps secure the rebar trough thin plastic fins, our caps do this through rugged plastic clips.

When we cut the caps through the middle we can observe that the protective upper part of our cap is 5mm thick, much wider that the rest of the cap, which is set at 2mm, giving it greater impact resistance, on the other hand other manufacturers leave the thickness of the cap constant at 2mm making them more prone to impalement risks.

In terms of ease of installation, we can observe that common safety plugs are easy to install in a half an inch rebar, but once we try to install it in a one inch bar it becomes way harder to push it downward and if you want to reinstall it in a half an inch rebair the cap just doesn't hold the bar with the same firmness it originally did.

On the other hand our Atecon Rebar cap latches itself firmly on a half inch rebar and once we install It on a one inch rebar the pressure needed to secure It is much less than with the other cap, once we reinstall it on the half inch rebar , the cap adjust itself to the smaller diameter firmly due to the inner legs and the high quality plastic used helps it flexing back to its original position, allowing you to reuse our caps indefinitely in a great variety of rebar diameters, instead of having to buy new caps every time you want to interchange them between thicker to thinner rebars.

For our impact test we used 46kg bags of sand dropped from a height of 10 feet, we sharpened the edge of the rebars used for the drop test to demonstrate just how much more resistant our rebar plugs are in comparison to other brands. In the first test, we used a cap from one of our competitors, which is easily perforated by the rebar.

When we exchanged the cap for our RC1 Atecon Cap, having resisted the impact of the drop test, what can be seen is fractures around the body of the cap, but remember these elements are for one use only after an impact. The main point is that the integrity of the worker is safeguarded due to the lack of impalement possibility

Our second tests are made from a height of a regular person, as you can see the generic cap lets the rebar trough the sand bag, our cap resists the test with no visible damage to it

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at www.rebarspacerchair.com

09/05/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, the leader in rebar spacer manufacturing in Latin America since 1995. In this video we want to show you the need to patch walls and floors that are in plain sight so that the places where makeshift and plastic dobies are installed remain invisible.

To back up our claim we poured a column, in each one of its 4 sides, we installed a different type of spacer, which are the following: improvised spacer, plastic chairs and Atecon spacer wheels and clip pincer series.

We used EPS in its center, to lighten the structure up and not use so much concrete mixture for this test.

We marked each side of the formwork with the spacer used, so that we don't mix up the results from the test.

The pour was made with a simple concrete mixture of 1 part cement and 2 parts sand and fine aggregate. To have the concrete settle in, we used a rubber mallet to simulate vibrating procedures.

After 48 hours of drying we proceeded to demould each side of the column, the first side was the improvised spacer one, as you can see the flat bottom of these kinds of spacer does not allow them to camouflage itself with the concrete poured, leaving the circular outline of the spacer body marked on the concrete. And on the lower side of the column these type of spacer didn't allow the concrete to flow freely generating cavities in the structure.

The second side to be tested is the one using Atecon Wheel spacers, due to the fact that the only part to make contact with the formwork is a small tip, the Wheel remains invisible once the concrete dries up.

The third side to be demoulded is the plastic chair one, these types of spacer have the same problem as the improvised ones, the bottom of it is flat so that it remains stable once it's installed, but leaves the same circular mark on the finished concrete.

The last side to be tested is the one containing the atecon clip pincer series, due to its exclusive three tip support structure, concrete can flow beneath the spacer enveloping it and leaving an excellent finish in your concrete structure.

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at www.rebarspacerchair.com

09/05/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, In this video we want to give you an example of how inefficient the process of making rebar spacers at the build site really is and also to back up our data found in the cost comparison in our website, explaining the high cost of these improvised bar positioners.

As a first step we prepare the mortar mixture for the spacers which is made on one part cement and 2 parts of sand.

In the second step the 3 inch thick PVC tube is cut to the cover the height required, as you can see the cuts are never perfectly flat, leaving an inconsistent cover height from these kind of spacers, as the tube gets shorter keeping it in position by a single worker becomes impossible, so a second person has to help keep the tube from moving around during cutting procedures.

In the third step the cutting of the Steel wires is made with an industrial cutter and the bending of the wires is completed by hand.

The fourth step is pouring the mortar mixture into the PVC molds and adding the Steel wire to them, as you can see this is a very slow process.

Demoulding is our sixth step, it is achieved by cutting the PVC mold in a longitudinal fashion so you can extract the spacer from it, keep in mind that the PVC capsule once its cut is no longer usable.

After that we compare the time needed to install this kind of spacer vs. Our rebar chairs, as you can see its much faster to install our spacer due to their plastic clip than having to tie each spacer trough wire to the rebar grid.

Another type of common make shift spacer is the one made of all Steel of no more that 3/8 of an inch thick. The process is pretty straight forward the rebar is cut to the desired length to bend it afterwards to the shape needed to hold the rebar grid away from the terrain.

The process is slow and need two workers to bend a strong material like Steel into place.

This type of spacer is the most expensive of them all, due to the fact that if you need a cover height of 2 inches you will need as much as 30 inches of rebar to bend it into place. Therefore, only the cost of the steel that is being bent surpasses many times the cost of any prefabricated rebar chair.

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at www.rebarspacerchair.com

09/05/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, the leader in rebar spacer manufacturing in Latin America since 1995. In this video we want to give you a quick intro about our Formwork Guide Cones.

These practical elements will let you put the she bolt tensor trough your Wall formwork's, avoiding the chance of any concrete spillage during pouring procedures and not allowing the tensors bolt of getting stuck in the dry Wall.

The cone is 3cm high from which 50% or 1,5cm will be inserted into the PVC tube, which means that if we want to make a 20cm thick Wall, we will need a PVC tube cut to 17cm plus a cone on each side to complete the total Wall thickness needed.

To demonstrate the effects of not using a cover system for your Steel bolt tensor, we simulated a small Wall pour, the result is that the tensor is caught inside the Wall once the concrete dries up, but if we use the guide cones and the PVC tube as a holster we can easily recover the she bolt ounce the Wall is dry, we used two types of Steel bolts so what we can show you that the cone is effective for any width of tensor that doesn't exceed 22mm.

Once the concrete is dry we proceed to remove the tensor nuts and the plywood form. The Steel tensors are removed without any damage to them or the freshly poured Wall. The cones are removed by pulling them out with the end of the tensor or by using a set of pliers, remember that our cones are reusable, the only thing embedded inthe Wall is the PVC tube, which will be unnoticeable once the Wall is patched

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at
www.rebarspacerchair.com

Para nuestra web en español por favor visite www.separadoresatecon.com

09/05/2019

Hi and welcome to Atecon, the leader in rebar spacer manufacturing in Latin America since 1995. In this video we want to give you a quick intro about our Clip Pincer spacer, this practical product is commonly used in floor slabs and also in walls and columns making it very versatile. This type of spacer can be seen as a brother of the Clip mortar Spacer with the difference that this chair is designed for holding thin mesh instead of rebar.

Installation procedures are the same as for the Clip mortar all you have to do is lift your mesh and place the spacer in the desired position. Like all Atecon concrete spacers that we manufacture, the clip mortar delivers over 5000psi of compression resistance and guarantee a total compatibility with the concrete used in your build site.

A mayor plus from this bar chair is that the 3 small contact points in the inferior part of the element allow concrete to flow under it and envelope it completely, making the spacer an integral part of your structure, this also helps you avoid any kind of patching procedures under the freshly poured floor slab, because the spacer camouflages itself perfectly with the concrete.

If you wish to know more about this and other practical construction accesories, please visit us at www.rebarspacerchair.com

Para nuestra web en español por favor visite www.separadoresatecon.com

06/02/2018

https://www.constructioncanada.net/reinforced-concrete-corrosion-a-silent-killer/?qnewsletter=20180131&en_click=1&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=feature

Something to think about when you don´t give enough rebar cover to your structure.

Concrete has many advantages, including formability and durability. The material has high compressive strength, which is defined as the maximum compressive load a body can bear prior to failure. However, concrete is actually quite weak in tensile strength, meaning it is not an ideal material when a....