How to make paving tiles at home with your own hands?

Every owner 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 paving tiles with your own hands.

Where is the product used?

In principle, the scope of such material is quite wide. Most often, such products can be seen in private areas of residential buildings, cottages, baths or other structures. You can also lay such tiles in gardens, squares, parks and other public places. Naturally, in the latter case, ready-made material is acquired.

Before you begin to understand how to make paving tiles with your own hands, you need to figure out whether it is worth doing it, what advantages the finished product has, what needs to be prepared for work. First of all, it must be said that the manufacturing process is not complicated and does not require expensive equipment.

Material advantages

Before you make paving tiles yourself, you should consider its advantages. Among them are the following:

- Originality of the elements. During the manufacturing process, you can play with color and fillers. Thus, you will create just such a design and shape of the tile that you yourself want. Naturally, one should be careful here, because the technical characteristics of the product depend on the proportions of the ingredients.

- Low cost. Naturally, before you make paving tiles with your own hands, you need to choose the necessary materials that are required to be of high quality. You should not "buy" cheap cement.

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

- Manufacturing products directly at the installation site.

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

- Ecological cleanliness.

- Resistance to quick wear and durability (if all manufacturing steps are completed correctly).

- Minimum risk of injury.

Now consider the question of how to make paving tiles with your own hands.

What materials will be required?

Naturally, all ingredients should be of the highest quality. So, for work you need to prepare:

1. Cement (only M-500 grades are required, since this type of material allows you to make a mixture that after solidification will be very durable).

2. The sand.

3. Water.

4. Small pebbles.

5. Kohler (one or more).

6. Plasticizer (sold at a hardware store).

All ingredients must be cleaned of impurities (debris, leaves, herbs). Also, before you make paving tiles with your own hands, collect all the necessary materials and necessary tools.

Equipment required

So, in order for the manufacturing process to go relatively quickly, you need to take care of all the technical devices in advance that will help 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 vibration table. It can also be built independently. Although this machine is optional.

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

- Tables or racks that will be installed as evenly as possible. Otherwise, the mixture in the molds may solidify improperly, with skew. Naturally, such elements will already be considered defective, and as they cannot be put evenly.

- A tool for pulling finished products from containers.

Since almost everyone can make paving slabs with their own hands , you should consider the technology of the work.

Features of the choice of form

This question is not complicated. Most often, plastic molds are used for home production of the presented material. They can have different sizes. In addition, our construction market presents 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, such a container must be strong enough so that it can be used more than once.

Before you make the paving slabs 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, then you can use ordinary plastic food containers. However, they will not last long.

Features of the preparation of the solution

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

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

Manufacturing instruction

Now consider the question of how to make paving tiles yourself. The whole process involves the implementation of several stages that cannot change their sequence:

1. Preparation of the solution. All ingredients must be mixed thoroughly. This can provide a forced action concrete mixer. Although gravity works no worse.

2. Form filling as well as vibration compaction of the mixture. This should be done carefully. Filling is done with an ordinary shovel. For compaction, you need a vibrating table. His vibrations should not be too strong. That is, make sure that the solution in the form is evenly distributed. Such a seal will make the elements as durable as possible and prevent their delamination. 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. Aging and drying of the elements. Since you want to make paving slabs at home quickly, many manufacturers may violate production technology. The quality of the elements suffers from this. Therefore, it is necessary to withstand the time that is allocated to the maturation of concrete and its drying. So, after compaction, the molds with the mixture should “rest” on a flat surface for at least two days. In order for the ripening to go well, and the cement does not crack due to moisture loss, the containers should be well wrapped in plastic wrap.

4. Excavation 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 the finished elements from the forms so that they do not break and do not crack. To do this, it is better to place them in a bath with water, the temperature of which will be no more than 70 degrees.

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

After all these actions, the product is almost ready for installation. Naturally, he should be given time to gain strength. It is better to leave the material alone for several weeks. Now you understand how to make paving slabs at home.

What is a “plastic bottle tile”?

The problem of recycling is very urgent today. However, a method for using plastic bottles was invented, which involves reducing the degree of environmental pollution. From them they learned how to make tiles for sidewalks. Moreover, this process can take place both at home and in the workplace.

Before making paving slabs from plastic bottles, you should consider the features of this procedure. Its advantage is the low cost of the product, as well as the absence of problems with the amount of raw materials.

The manufacture of such material is divided into the following steps:

- Grinding of raw materials.

- Melting plastic in a special heating apparatus and mixing it with raw sand and pigment.

- Pouring the resulting solution into molds and pressing.

- cooling tiles.

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

Useful Tips

Making paving tiles with 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 use the layer-by-layer casting technique. Naturally, in this case you will need two concrete mixers. Layers are stacked alternately, and colorless should be inside. The thickness of each is 1-2 cm.

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

Please note that plasticizer helps to increase the strength of the elements, as well as their resistance to temperature changes. However, you should not add it too much. For the manufacture of the presented building material, not only concrete can be used.

Now you know how to make paving slabs at home. Good luck