Can not get concrete to be smooth

There must be some trick I do not know to smoothing concrete. I had a water pipe leak and had to bust up my slab to fix it. So I am repairing a small section of slab using Quikrete Fiber Concrete. I mixed up per the direction 3Qts per 80lb bag, but that seems like a very dry mix to me. I try to use a trowel to move the rocks down in order to smooth it, but it just does not seem to work for me. The rocks stay on top and just get moved around no matter how long I float it.

I watch these youtube videos and it seems so easy. I would love to see a detailed video with a person hand mixing and pouring this stuff and smoothing out a small 2'x2' section with a trowel and making it come out smooth.

I thought of just adding a lot more water, but it says if you add more water you weaken the concrete.

Does anybody know what the trick is to making this stuff come at smooth. My plan is just to leave the concrete low and come back and smooth with a topping mix with a sand aggregate instead of rock aggregate.

Any thought would be appreciated.
Robert

 

If you didn't get it in the last hour, it's too late. What did you use to float it with? Generally using a float will reverse the rock and liquid and give you a smoother surface. Concrete patch may be your only hope at this point. Let it dry, then patch it.

 

There are 3 basic steps. First, you strike off or "screed" the concrete with a board to get it flat. Then you float it with a wood or magnesium hand float to further flatten it and fill in the surface voids. Finally, you trowel it with a steel trowel to smooth it out. Not a triangular shaped mason's trowel but a rectangular one. You keep trowelling it at intervals until it's so hard that you can't do anything else to it.