How to make paving slabs with your own hands

Creating things with your own hands takes a lot of time. However, you get two undeniable advantages: the results of labor become unique and saved money. Paving tile in this case is no exception. Basically, the homemade tile is used for tracks on household plots, dachas. The process of laying a large area of \u200b\u200bthe entrance to the gate is even longer, and only silent passersby will be evaluated.

To work, you will need:

Trowel, spatula, level;
Molds for the solution;
Drill with a mixing nozzle or concrete mixer;
Place for drying tiles;
Cement, sand, water, dyes.

Before starting work, you need to decide on its volume. Based on this, we select the mixing container. Perhaps it will be a neighbor or rented concrete mixer, or everything can do with a plastic basin and a bucket. It is also necessary to find out what form will be optimal for your finished product: ready-made forms are sold in building supermarkets and cost inexpensively. If you bother completely, the form can be made of wooden bars and rails. Usually, it is up to 7 centimeters high. Fancy of the forms always remains at the discretion of the designer-builder. However, there are also two cornerstones: with a big form it is hard to work because of weight and not versatility, it will take even more time to lay a small tile.

When the forms are ready - you can start kneading the solution. As in other construction moments, the finished product and its characteristic is directly dependent on the components. For durability, it is better to use cement brand 500. Brand 300 can deliver you trouble for a relatively short service life of the tile, although in favor of this cement there is a cost. Sand must be sifted from excess garbage. Water into the solution is also better pouring clean. You can use reinforcing elements - rods, wire, grid. To give a tile of even greater originality, you can take an inorganic dye that will not survive under the right sunny rays. For cleanliness of the product and brighter, gray cement is recommended to replace on white. Again, its price is slightly higher.

Now the ingredients are ready. It is necessary to mix them in such a proportion: 3 pieces of sand and one piece of cement. Weep water with parts, completely stirring the solution. According to the consistency, it should be like a dough, be plastic. Forms are filled with a solution completely or two parts when using reinforcement. A wide spatula is cut off the excess solution from the form of the form, periodically catching up it for better shrinkage of the solution in the amount of form. A good help for creating paving slabs will be vibrationtol. The solution with which you fill the shapes under the action of vibration will evenly distribute all over the volume, turn out of air education. Such a tile will serve longer.

The next important point is the drying of the tile. The slower it occurs, the less likely the occurrence of cracks in the tile itself. Therefore, after pouring the form it is better to cover with a plastic film or placed under a canopy. If the temperature of the external environment is high, then the forms periodically need to be moistened with water. You can remove the form after 5 days, the tile itself will dry another three weeks to become the most stronger and durable.

Tile can be finished. Now you can develop a place for laying. Here, too, you need to be attentive to avoid water stagnation and leveling level. In this case, the tile, created by its own hands, will serve quite many years and will get to the next generations.