How to make a sidewalk tile at home?

Every landlord who wants his property to look beautiful and functional, tries to do a lot with his own hands. Especially if he is a creative person. From this article you can learn how to make your own paving slabs.

Where is the product used?

In principle, the scope of such a material is quite wide. Most often, you can see such products in private areas of houses, dachas, bathhouses or other structures. You can also lay this tile in gardens, squares, parks and other public places. Naturally, in the latter case, the finished material is already available.

Before you begin to understand how to make a paving slab with your own hands, you need to understand whether it is worth it to do, what are the advantages of the finished product, what you need to prepare for work. First of all, I must say that the manufacturing process is not complicated and does not require expensive equipment.

Advantages of the material

Before you make a paving slab with your own hands, you should consider its advantages. Among them we can distinguish such:

- Originality of the elements. In the making process, you can play with colors and fillers. Thus, you will create exactly the design and shape of the tiles that you yourself want. Naturally, you should be careful here, because the proportions of the ingredients depend on the technical characteristics of the product.

- Low cost. Naturally, before you make a paving slab with your own hands, you need to select the necessary materials that are required to have high quality. Do not "buy" on cheap cement.

- Relative strength (although you should not put these elements where the car will drive).

- Manufacture of products directly at the site of installation.

- No need for expensive equipment. However, if you decide to open your own business, then without a couple of machines you can not do.

- Ecological cleanliness.

- Resistance to rapid wear and durability (if all stages of manufacturing are performed correctly).

- Minimal injury to persons.

Now let's consider the question of how to make a paving slab with your own hands.

What materials will be required?

Naturally, all ingredients should be as high as possible. So, for work you need to prepare:

1. Cement (only M-500 grades are required, since this type of material allows making a mixture, which after solidification will be very strong).

2. Sand.

3. Water.

4. Small pebbles.

5. Kohler (one or more).

6. Plasticizer (sold in a building store).

All ingredients should be cleaned of impurities (debris, leaves, grass). Also, before making a paving slab with your own hands, gather all the necessary materials and the necessary tools.

Required equipment

So, in order to make the process of manufacturing products relatively quickly, you must take care of all the technical devices in advance, which will help to speed up the work. So, you will need:

- Concrete mixer. If there are several of them, this is good. In this case, the process will go faster.

- Molding vibrating table. You can also build it yourself. Although this machine is not mandatory.

- A set of forms. It is better if they are several dozen.

- Tables or shelving, which will be installed as flat as possible. Otherwise, the mixture in the molds may stiffen incorrectly, with a skew. Naturally, such elements will already be considered defective, as they can not be laid flat.

- A tool for pulling out finished products from containers.

As almost every person can make a paving slab with his own hands, one should consider the technology of work.

Features of the choice of form

This question is not difficult. Most often, plastic molds are used for the home production of the material presented. They can have different sizes. In addition, our construction market represents a huge selection of types of such forms. That is, you have the opportunity to make a very original tile, which no one else will have. Naturally, this capacity should be strong enough that it can be used more than once.

Before you make a paving slab yourself, you need to decide on the shape of the containers: square, round or some other. If you do not want to buy such material in the store, you can use ordinary plastic food containers. However, they will not last long.

Features of solution preparation

Before you make a paving slab yourself, you should find out in what proportions you want to mix the ingredients, so that later the elements turn out to be high-quality and durable. You need so many materials for one batch:

Material	Number of parts
Sand river	1
Cement	1
Crushed stone (fraction 1-2 cm)	2
Plasticizer	0.5-2% by weight of cement
Color	Up to 5% of the amount of cement

Stir it thoroughly. And in order that there is no air in the solution, it will have to be processed on a vibrating table.

Instruction for manufacturing

Now let's consider the question of how to make the paving slab itself. The whole process involves several stages that can not change their sequence:

1. Preparation of the solution. All ingredients must be mixed thoroughly. This can provide a forced-mix concrete mixer. Although the gravitational one works no worse.

2. Filling the molds, as well as vibrating compaction of the mixture. It should be done carefully. Filling is done with a conventional shovel. For compaction you need a vibrating table. His fluctuations should not be too strong. That is, make sure that the solution in the form is distributed evenly. Such compaction will make the elements as strong as possible and prevent their separation. When loading concrete, consider its level. In all forms, it must be the same. To do this, you can simply make marks on the inside of the container.

3. Maturing and drying elements. Since you want to make paving slabs at home quickly, many manufacturers can violate production technology. From this, the quality of the elements suffers. Therefore, it is necessary to withstand the time that is allowed for the aging of the concrete and its drying. So, after compacting the mold with the mixture should "rest" on a flat surface for at least two days. To ripen well, and cement is not cracked due to loss of moisture, the container should be well wrapped with polyethylene film.

4. Extraction of finished products from molds. Now you understand how to make paving slabs at home, the composition of the mixture is also known to you. However, you should consider how to properly remove ready-made elements from forms so that they do not break and do not crack. To do this, it is better to put them in a bath with water, the temperature of which will not be more than 70 degrees.

5. Warehousing of products. In order for the concrete to calmly dry out further, it is necessary to cover the tile with a shrink film.

After all these actions, the product is almost ready to be stacked. Naturally, he should be given time to recruit strength. It is better to leave the material alone for a few weeks. Now you understand how to make a paving slab at home.

What is "tile from plastic bottles"?

The problem of recycling today is very relevant. However, the method of using plastic bottles was invented, which implies a reduction in the degree of pollution of the environment. They learned to make tiles for sidewalks. And this process can take place both at home and at work.

Before you make a paving slab of plastic bottles, you should consider the features of this procedure. Its advantage is the low cost of the product, as well as the lack of problems with the amount of raw materials.

The production of such material is divided into the following stages:

- Grinding of raw materials.

- Melt the plastic in a special heating device and mix it with raw sand and pigment.

- Pouring the resulting solution into molds and pressing.

- Tile cooling.

It should be noted that such a product is characterized by durability, high strength and resistance to erasure, external beauty, variety of shapes, speed of production.

Helpful Tips

Make a paving slab your own hands is not very difficult. However, the process has some nuances. For example, if you want to save a lot of color, you can apply the technique of layer-by-layer casting. Naturally, in this case you will need two concrete mixers. The layers are stacked alternately, and the colorless should be inside. The thickness of each is 1-2 cm.

If you have defective pieces of tile, then it can be broken and reapplied in solution. The new forms can be treated with a special substance, so that later the concrete leaves the walls better. After use, the plastic should be washed with a weak solution of hydrochloric acid. Forms for work can be produced independently using silicone or wood. Naturally, these elements before work will need to be well attached.

Note that the plasticizer contributes to the strength of the elements, as well as their resistance to temperature changes. However, do not add it too much. For the production of the presented building material, not only concrete can be used.

Now you know how to make a paving slab at home. Good luck!