: george;
: what exactly is a screed? it is not a term i am familiar with. i'm in canada,
: eh. i can buy hss (heavy structural steel) for anywhere from thirty to
: forty cents a pound. i'm in the steel business. thought...... try your
: local salvage yard. the only problem with hss is that it is round edge,
: making layout a bit of a pain. i've been thinking about a marking jig to
: transfer lines around a round corner, but i havn't built it yet. thought
: food.
: daren.........
I try to stay away from the scrap yard, but with four cats the aluminum cans do build up. The going price for steel is about a penny a pound going in and 30-40 cents per going out and I always seem to find something too wonderful to leave behind!

A screed is the tool masons use to roughly level a concrete pour before floating. Its ends bear on the top of the forms and it's pushed with a sawing motion across the concrete. A wood 2 by 4 used to be used, but the aluminum is straigter, doesn't flex as much under the weight of the mason and leaves a smoother finish.

While poking around in the archieves the other day looking for shop ideas, I came across a photo of a mezzanie shop in an ambulance station. One of the photos showed a very neat steel strongback.