Pattern forming wheel for uncured concrete surfaces

A combination of a plurality of worker driven, axleless imprinting tools joined together for simultaneously imprinting predetermined surface patterns upon a slab of freshly cast, surface smoothed and floated, yet still plastic concrete,

• each tool comprising frame means of generally cylindrical and uniformly sized geometry having an inside diameter sufficiently large to accommodate a worker in a walking position in a circumferential direction therewithin, said frame means for supporting said worker;
• blade means arranged in said predetermined surface patterns being positioned continuously about the outside area of said frame means, said blade means for penetrating into and withdrawing from the surface of said still plastic concrete to form said surface patterns therein as said tool is rolled over the surface of said slab,
• said combination further comprising adjacent tool joining means for joining together adjacent peripheral edges of adjacent ones of said plurality of imprinting tools.

A worker driven, axleless imprinting tool for imprinting predetermined surface patterns upon a slab of freshly cast, surface smoothed and floated, yet still plastic concrete, comprising:

• frame means of generally cylindrical, yet polyhedronal geometry having a series of contiguous planar facets and having an inside diameter sufficiently large to accommodate a worker in a walking position in a generally circumferential directin therewithin, said frame means for supporting said worker;
• planar blade means mounted to each said facet of said series, said planar blade means for penetrating down into the surface of said still plastic concrete to form said surface patterns therein as a said facet comes into contact with the surface of said slab, as said tool is rotated from facet to facet over the surface of said slab,
• whereby the weight of said worker is combined with the weight of said tool to aid in driving each said planar blade means into the surface of said slab as its facet aligns against said surface, and said worker by walking motion propels said wheel in a stepping motion from facet to facet over said surface to provide said predetermined pattern therein.

In a method of patterning the exposed surface of an uncured concrete slab to the appearance of laid bricks, tiles, cobblestones and the like, including the steps of forming the concrete slab on the ground, floating the exposed surface of said slab to bring up the finest particles of the concrete material, and driving forming blades in a predetermined pattern conforming to the shapes of said bricks, tiles, cobblestones and the like into said exposed surface to a predetermined effective depth, the improvement comprising the steps of:

• (a) providing said blades continuously along the outer area of a large, axleless generally cylindrical wheel having an inside diameter sufficient to accommodate a worker in a walking position therewithin;
• (b) driving said blades into said surface to a desired depth by rotating said cylindrical wheel along a path on said surface to be patterned, said rotation of said wheel resulting from walking movements of said worker within said wheel, said blades being arcuately driven into said surface at the location of tangency of said wheel with said slab, and automatically being withdrawn from said slab after penetration by continued rotation of said wheel.