Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Concrete Countertop Mould


I started on the countertop for the bathroom vanity on the weekend. When we took all the junk to the dump awhile back, I picked up a sheet of 5/8" melamine. I think you're supposed to use 3/4", it's a small countertop, so it should suffice. I used some masonite strips to make a template for the countertop, since the room isn't perfectly square. I nailed them to the surface with small finish nails, and glued it all together. Next I traced it out, and cut the sheet with the circular saw. I cut it freehand, probably should have rigged up a guide. After fooling around with string, and piece of wood rotating around a finish nail to make a circle, I opted to use the piece I cut out for the sink. I screwed the piece to the surface, and wrapped it with 2 pieces of masonite. The first strip is screwed in, the second is glued. I have to use a couple screws at the seam. I'll have to fill the bumps left from the screws. Next was the knockouts for the faucet. Originally, I tried making them out of foam, they were ugly, so I found some scraps of pipe, and used them. I used 1.25" pipe, with 2" sections, where the faucet is attached. I ended up shoving the foam in side, and then just pushing the whole thing on to a finish nail to hold it in place. All the seams were then caulked to leave a slight bevel, and to make the whole thing water tight. Black silicone is recommended, it's just easier to see on the white melamine.
Next is rebar and remesh. The remesh looked too big for such a small countertop (28x20") so I'm going to try a few layers of hardware cloth (it's kind of like fencing). We ordered about $300 in supplies from Concrete Exchange so hopefully that will come soon, since we're in Canada, ordering online can be more challeging. Even though we have the use of a mailbox in the U.S. Anyhow we ordered a finishing kit to polish it up, sealer, wax, admixture, water reducer, colouring and slurry. We got enough for the basement kitchen as well, at least I hope, otherwise that's an expensive countertop.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking good, Derek! The counters I poured for our wine cellar weren't so complicated - no cutouts for sinks or faucets. I'm anxious to read how the rest goes!

Derek said...

yeah, I'm pretty anxious too. I can't pour it until the supplies come.

Anonymous said...

Yeah- we wish you lived even closer then we could help each other out with the counter tops. Nick was excited to check out the site where you ordered the stuff.