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The concrete hopper is mounted on the left-hand side in front of the curb mold for easy access by ready-mix trucks. Inside the hopper are two Wyco hydraulic vibrators to consolidate the mix. "The hopper itself holds about a third of a yard of concrete," says Johnson. "We can pave anywhere from 5 to 6 fpm."

The Curbcat isn't intended for long-distance paving. "We're not looking at going out to pave five miles a day," says Johnson. However, it is capable of handling light commercial projects. "Even if you have two or three city blocks of a subdivision to do, there's no problem with a machine of this size."

With its capabilities, the attachment does require a fairly sizable investment. But the payback comes quickly. Johnson notes that his crews previously hand-rolled all curbing — a time- and labor-intensive process. Last fall, they used the Curbcat to place 1,400 ft. of curb and gutter on a bank project. The project took just five hours.

"If you did a half dozen commercial parking lots a year, you could probably pay for the machine with the labor savings alone," he asserts.

The attachment can also supplement existing paving units. Johnson cites a Michigan-based contractor who already owned two dedicated slip formers. "He bought this machine just for the small jobs so he didn't have to move his big slip-form pavers to do them," he states.