Cutting down a concrete filled basketball backboard pole

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Back in March of 1988 I was in charge of the team that designed the P-100 paint robot. Dave was my boss.  In the following picture I am on the left and Dave is on the right. 1. Dave and I

Last week Dave called me for help removing the 4” square concrete-filled pole that used to support the basketball backboard, in preparation for moving. He had an old Craftsman 4-1/2” angle grinder but it could only accommodate the cupped (type 27) grinding wheels and cut-off wheels, not the straight ones.  He tried to purchase a cupped cut-off wheel at the hardware store but they only had the straight ones. Eventually he was able to cut off the top 6’ of the pole using a Sawzall with blade that had carbide grit and another blade that was carbide tipped. Below is a picture of the pole that remained after Dave cut off the top with the Sawzall. 2. Pole

Below is a picture of the cut that Dave made with the Sawzall.3. Dave's cut

Unfortunately, it was taking Dave too long and he had a whole list of things to get done before the moving van came in four days, so I came over to help him to remove the remaining pole. The pole was on a slight hill as shown below.4. Pole on slight hill

I used a chisel to cut into the frozen ground, so that the cut would be below ground and level. I used a 6” abrasive cut off wheel on my Metabo grinder. I cut the square tube off about ¾” above the bottom of the hole that I chiseled out from the frozen ground. I hit the pole at shoulder level with a sledge hammer and the concrete in the pole broke off about ¾’ below my cut in the tube. I used my hammer drill with a chisel to level off the concrete in the tube. 5. Leveling off concrete

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Reply:Next I used a 6” grinding wheel on my Metabo grinder to cut off the tube flush with the concrete.6. Cutoff rectangular tube

The next day was garbage pick-up, so Dave wanted to put the scrap metal out for pick-up. Unfortunately, in Dave’s town they don’t take concrete, so I cut both 6’ tubes the long-way on two sides as shown below to remove the concrete. The whole job took 1-1/2 of the Metabo slicer plus cut-off wheels7. Slicing the tube long-ways

Next I supported the tube on one end and smacked it at 6” intervals with the sledge hammer to break up the concrete.  As you can see it broke into convenient little blocks.8. Broke up concrete

This was one of the very few jobs that took less time than I estimated. The entire job including putting tools into and out of my car and driving the 10 minutes to and from Dave’s house was less than two hours.While I was at it, I did make a washer for Dave’s grinder that would allow him to use the straight cut off wheels on his grinder in the future.9. Spacer for Dave's grinder

10. Spacer installed on Dave's grinder

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Reply:Assuming the post didn't go into the ground more than a few feet, I'd probably have dug up the whole base and broken the concrete footing away from the post with the impact hammer, then offered the post to someone using Craigslist Free...Or if the OP, put the post on the moving truck, depending on my future need and how the movers charge.
Reply:Could have put a Stop sign on it. The next snow plow in the neighborhood would have taken it out for you...The harder you fall, the higher you bounce...250 amp Miller DialArc AC/DC StickF-225 amp Forney AC Stick230 amp Sears AC StickLincoln 180C MIGVictor Medalist 350 O/ACut 50 PlasmaLes
Reply:

Originally Posted by whtbaron

Could have put a Stop sign on it. The next snow plow in the neighborhood would have taken it out for you...