Sunday, September 7, 2008

Concrete Countertop Results

This morning when I checked on the countertop it was pretty warm, hydration was well underway. I stripped the forms this afternoon and Jerad helped flip it over. Some of the pieces of the mold were hard to remove. Jerad went and made a wedge out of walnut, that was probably more expensive than all of the other wood used for the forms. Here is what the backsplash looked like right out of the form. The color is exactly what we were looking for.

After removing the foam spacer. The glass tiles were covered with silicon so the concrete didn't stick to them. I will have to clean up the concrete that seeped under them. I am debating about lightly staining the inset pieces to give them more depth.
I lightly ground the bottom of the sink to knock down the high points. It was already pretty hard, I burned up a grinding wheel on the makita.
Before and after of the tile inset. The foam I used was ribbed so the back of the inset area is grooved, pretty groovy.
It's a baby, kind of soft and not much to look at. A little cleaning, polishing, and grouting and it will look pretty good.
I will build wood planks to insert into the top groove. That way it can be a partial of full flat surface for Sam to set her stuff on when getting ready. The front edge chipped a little when we removed the forms. Later this week I will whip up a batch of grout and fill that back in.
Well so far so good. It looks like what it is supposed to.
It needs to cure a couple days before a preliminary grinding. Then I can fill in the bug holes with a cement slurry and finish polishing.
Covered with wet towels and wrapped in plastic. Looks like happy concrete to me.


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