The brown is Full Sale ale bottles, if I'm recalling correctly. Or it could be Lagunitas Ale.

The dark green is from some champagne bottles and some other bottles of the same color.

The light green is from Trader Joes apple juice. That was the hardest one because we really didn't care for the juice.

There was some clear glass from Gerolsteiner bottles.

Finally, the off white glass came from off white china saucers I found at the local Goodwill store.

I know you can buy this stuff on line, but (mostly) it is fun to drink the contents.

Silverraven-- I really like the bathroom vanity. Was that a poor in place top as well? What did you use for the sink cutout -- rigid foam insulation, and if so how do you cut it so perfectly?

Vanity was an off site pour (in a mold), using a melamine form. Yes the sink cut out was pink rigid foam insulation. Hubby used a jig saw with a fine tooth blade. Actually cut way better than we had hoped. Much better than an electric knife. Then he used a palm sander to smooth, and clear packing tape around the outside of it so the concrete doesn't stick to it.

So far we are happy with the desk top texture. You can't really tell the texture in the picture because of the 'haze' that forms on it till it is ground/polished. I will post pics of it after we have done that. It will probably be 28 days though. They say if you don't want a lot of the aggregate showing you wait that long to grind/polish. That is what we did on the vanity, it seemed to work.
Oh, one thing about pouring off site (in a mold). Remember, you have to carry that darn thing in to put it into place. That stuff is heavy! The vanity was 200 lbs of concrete. And it is awkward to try to move. Make sure you have enough friends that are willing to help if you do it that way. That is why we are doing the pour in place for the desk and kitchen counters. Just toooo heavy to carry!
S

Thanks for the tidbits of info. I'm planning on making our next two countertops and the kitchen will be about 12' long. I think I'll have to have a party just to get enough people to help move it.

I have two questions:

1. - overlyoptimistic - could you give us your exact mix.
   I have been thinking of using Fritz-Pak Counter Flo with some added fiber, but not sure if I should use glass or nylon and what size to use.

2. - silverraven - It looks like you mounted the form to the plywood base under your counter? What would you have done if you used wonderboard. Also how did you hide the plywood on the finished piece?

I know it is very hard to see so maybe I can explain it to you and get some more pix up later today or tomorrow.
We are building our own cabinets, so right now we only have the boxes made and mounted. Across the tops of the boxes we put wonderboard/concrete board (1/2 inch thick) that came out to the edge of the boxes. Now since we will be adding a 3/4 inch face frame, 3/4 inch doors and want a 1/4 inch over hang past that we obviously had to support it somehow. So hubby cut 3/4 thick melamine (home depot) strips that were 1 3/4 inches wide (3/4 + 3/4 + 1/4) and used screws to secure that to the front of our boxes.(he used a Kreg Jig for this, he loves this tool!) Then he cut another strip that is the height we want our counters to be (we wanted 2 inches, so 2 inches plus the thickness of the melamine 3/4 = 2 3/4 inches) and screwed that to the other strip of melamine, making a kind of box to hold the concrete till dry. You have to leave this on for a week or so to let the concrete fully harden so it won't sag.
After you take the melamine off the concrete overhangs just like another other countertop material. Now we have to build our faceframes and doors to go on our boxes.
If you have a book store like Barnes and Nobles they carry the Cheng book. In the very back there are like 4 pages on pouring in place. They show pictures of building the mold step by step. We just improved on that by using melamine instead of regular wood, it releases the concrete so much easier. We learned a LOT doing this. Yes it has been hard, but it was also a lot of fun, and I think knowing you have built something yourself is a great feeling!
You can do this, "it ain't rocket science" And I would highly recommend the Quickcrete Countertop Mix, it made it so easy. Just add water and color, especially if you want a dark color like black (well, charcoal grey)
S

Here are some pictures of the mold, the desk after taking off the melamine mold, and a picture of my whole kitchen that we poured this week.
Hope these help.
S

OK, weird, my pix disappeared. I think fotopic is having problems today. Here is a link to look at them.

Here is a link that might be useful: concrete countertop pix

Thank you for the pix. I am kinda driving myself nutz. Weather to build my counter in place of use a mold. Problem is the whole bath is finished and now I decide that I want a concrete countertop and the counter is 91 inches long with two sinks. Once completed I will need to get it upstairs with one right angle turn in the staircase. If I build it in the bath, the mess will be unreal. The other thing is how to mount the mold to the side of a finished cabinet? The wall is already tiled, so I cannot put an angle bracket on the wall side.

Silverraven, thanks so much for the updates. Did you do your kitchen in one pour or do you "top off" the entire surface with a final pour? What are you going to do with the piece on your workbench? It's going to be great. Have you decided on a sealer? What part of the country are you in? Thanks again for your posts, but please keep the necessity of purchasing another great tool to yourself. Ha ha!

I remembered this post while I was browsing and came across this link at Bob Villa.

Here is a link that might be useful: Countertops

Sorry it's been so long, kinda busy here! I'll try to answer all the questions:
I am in the Charlotte, NC area. Our air conditioning went out the week of the pour, so it was nice and hot and humid for us!
We rented a 2 bag mixer from Lowes and just kind of filled in as we went, working from left to right. Since we had that very narrow piece that will go behind the stove we kind of made that our stopping point as far as filling up, then moving to the other side to fill up. Then we came back with the vibrator and then hubby leveled and smoothed.
Since we don't have face frames on yet, to attach the front of the mold hubby used Kreg screws and attached just like you would a face frame. We can go back later and use those same holes to attach our face frame.
This stuff is heavy! I don't know if you could lift a 91 inch piece and carry it upstairs. It is just bulky and if you torque it at all it will break. You could pour your piece in pieces, and have seams. Do something like Cheng does with metal as an intentional seam. That could look cool. I actually wish we had done that to add a some pizazz, but hubby wanted no seams. He won that argument. :(
The piece on my work bench goes on another counter down around the corner. It has so much crap piled up on top of it right now it was easier to just go ahead and build a mold instead of cleaning it off. Talk about lazy!!
We are going to use Tung Oil from Real Milk Paint as a sealer. Bees wax just won't cut it in a kitchen.
We are (hopefully) going to grind hubby's desk area this weekend. It is going to be super messy! We are lucky in one way, we only have boxes so we can hook all the plastic to them we want and not have to worry about damaging the fronts, face frames will cover this later. We are going to try to make a plastic room to contain all the mess we can. And my son gets to run the shop vac the whole time to suck up water as we go. And I have a pile of rags to wipe up with. Fun fun!
I have to say I think the funnies part of this whole darn process was when my 84 year old dad called me up one day and ask me if hubby and I had a vibrator. I about died laughing! Of course he was talking about a concrete vibrator, but it just sounded soooo funny!
OK, got to run, supervising hubby putting together his new toy. He got a router and table. This is our big Friday night date. Whoo hoo, aren't we exciting!
S

Hi michaelj7,

Sorry I've been absent for a few days. For the mix, I used white sand, white cement a mixture of two Cheng colors (evergreen and jade), the glass, metakaolin, Friz water reducer and nylon fiber. If you want the exact gram measurements of each, I'll have to get that off my home computer. I mixed it quite dry and did not include any aggregate, although it has a fair bit of remesh in it. It has been a couple years and not a single hairline crack (knock on wood).

I'm a big fan of using a mold and wet grinding/polishing. I once ground a small lump in a slab floor prior to installing bamboo -- it was a dry grind and I was cleaning dust for weeks. Best of luck with the grind, silverraven, although it sound like you might be using some H20.

Thank you overlyoptimistic,
If you get a chance, could you please get the specs for your mix for me. I have been playing with a bunch of mixes, and none have worked out, as I have added aggregate to all of them for strength. And, yes I plan on wet grinding. I have been planning on using Formica to make my forms. Then polish starting with either 200 or 400 and going upto 3000. I am trying to get a glasslike finish. I don't really want to see any aggregate, just maybe some of the sand specs. I would like to have a monolithic pour incorporating two sinks. I am contemplating making a crate to transport it upstairs. I figure I can get my 18 yr old son and some friends to do the move.

Somewhere on Youtube there is a video on how to get glass like concrete right out of the form. I can't remember what he poured into the mold first to do it, but it was interesting! I think he used plexiglass as his mold.
All concrete mixes are different, but with ours we found the longer we waited to grind, the less aggrigate was exposed. We waited 28 days for the vanity grind, wet grind. We took some samples up to 3000. Wow, amazing! Simply beautiful. I would love for you to post pics after you are done. We were going for a matte finish, so we only used 800 (very little grinding at that) and 1500.
I'm so excited you are going to try this! What color are you going to go?
S

The color I am looking for is a slightly lighter version of Cheng's Amber.

Oh, pretty!
I don't think you could use the Quikrete mix, I think it starts out too dark.
S

Here are the measurements in grams for my samples and the final counter. I think I made 17 samples before I was happy.

The cement is white cement and the sand is white sand. The water is approx

sample (g) counter (g)
cement 210 6856
sand 624 25303
H20 red 5 163
power poz 30 979
fibers 1 33
water 85 2775
Evergreen 19 620
jade 8 261
glass 166 5420

Glass components (g)
brown glass 874
dark green 1166
light green 874
white 583
clear 1923

overlyoptimistic,
Why the disparities in percentages from your test sample vs. your final pour? Was there a little tweaking involved?

I calculated the volume of the countertop and it was 32.649375
bigger than the sample. So that was the multiplier. The only ingredient that I then tweaked was the sand. Some early samples had pea gravel. But I was having problems with exposing the pea gravel when grinding, which I didn't want. So for later samples and for the final pour, I substituted sand for the pea gravel (about 150 grams).

silverraven-
You should definitely check of Cheng's sealer and wax. Both are food safe and made to withstand the wear and tear a kitchen countertop receives. His wax is made from carnuba wax, which is extremely durable (much more so than beeswax). Here is the web address for the sealer: http://store.concreteexchange.com/CHENG-Concrete-Online-Store_5/Finishing-Products/CHENG-Concrete-Countertop-Sealer
and the wax:
http://store.concreteexchange.com/CHENG-Concrete-Online-Store_5/Finishing-Products/CHENG-Concrete-Countertop-Wax

michaelj7,
I would highly recommend doing your countertop in a mold. It allows you to have more control over the finish, and it's convenient that the mess can be displaced somewhere else (like a garage). As for the size of your countertop... You should never pour a piece that is longer than 8 feet, and 91 inches is cutting it pretty close. You should consider making your countertop two separate pieces. Also, since this sounds like it is your first countertop, it may be a lot easier to use Cheng's pro-formula mix. It has always worked really well for me. It is the pigment, water reducer, and fibers all in one. So you really don't need to add anything other than bagged concrete (sakrete 5000+ works great). Cheng has a great book you may want to take a look at called Concrete Countertops Made Simple. That's how I originally learned to make countertops. Sorry for the super long post! I just wanted to share my experience. oh and if you want a color lighter than Amber, I would suggest Sand. Here is the link to their pro-formula: http://store.concreteexchange.com/CHENG-Concrete-Online-Store_5/CHENG-Pro-Formula-Products/CHENG-Pro-Formula-Mix

Best of luck!

laura j,
I have a sample of Cheng's Charcoal mix, and was planning on doing a test pour this weekend. However I have been leaning towards Buddy Rhodes mix because the aggregate is so small, I really would rather no aggregate other than sand. I have also been thinking that making the mold made with formica might be one of the better choice over malamine to get a smoother finish right from the start.

My main concerns are:
1. bug hole even though I plan on vibrating, I know there will be a few. And no matter what slurry mix you use, the color is never perfect.
2. Since I plan on using integral Barrel Sinks flipping this over to wet sand is and finish the top off.
3. Transporting it upstairs. I really would like to build it in one piece and it is goung to be 91" x 22" and I was planning on 2" thick, with 2 sinks.

For anyone debating on pouring in place vs. in a mold, go for the mold!!! Hubby insisted (glad he doesn't read this forum!) on pour in place. What a MESS! He wet ground his desk yesterday, and tried to dry grind part of the kitchen today (to see if that went any better). There is not a place in that area that is not covered in dust. And cleaning up the water/ground stuff last night was just a joy too. I could go through all that if the counters were turning out good, but he is having to grind so much to get them smooth he is exposing tons of agregate. I really wanted the look of my son's vanity, like in the picture above. All I want to do is sit down and cry. Don't make the same mistake I did, use a mold!
S

Has anyone thought of:
1. Making the mold out of formica laminated plywood?
2. Spay on a face coat of about 1/8th inch?
3. Backfill to 1.5 - 2.5 inches (your desired depth)

I think this may help solve some of the bug hole problems.

When you say spray a face coat of @ 1/8", do you mean on the mold or on the counter? Spray with what?

I've heard that some pros can pour with very few bug holes, but I think air entrapment is the nature of the beast.

Oh, Silver, sorry to hear about the counters. Best of luck.

{{!gwi}}

I wrote about this in another post but no one seemed that interested. In any casting the finish of the piece will mirror the finish of the mold. So you are polishing the wrong thing. You need to be polishing the mold to get a perfect finish. This is not as easy as just building a mold out of melamine which is okay and you can get a very good look with minimal grinding and polishing. As far as eliminating holes, I use a totally different material and aggregate than what has been mention here but you might try a little loser mix as the fist layer to coat the mold surface then a stiffer mix as you fill up the mold. I've never done this but it might be worth a try. And of course vibrate. John

overlyoptimistic:
I was thinking of sifting Buddy Rhodes mix with a 1/16" screen, then applying it with a drywall hopper. Then adding fiber to the mix to backfill.

jdesign:
1. What do you use and how do you build you prepare your mold?
2. How would you go about attatching the sidewall for a lucite mold?

jdesign: I never saw your other post, but I am very interested!! We specifically used melamine for my son's vanity top because we wanted that look, but I am always interested in learning how to do new things. I know this is not my 'forever' house, and I plan on doing concrete counters in my next one too. Maybe those will turn out better!!;)
S

It's basically the same process for building a mold for fiberglass parts. The piece comes out of the mold finished. You just seal and wax. The mold is built out of MDF then sprayed with a polyester primer. Any holes are filled with bondo and spot putty. You fill the inside corners to create a slight cove. You can use a small popsicle stick to help get a consistent edge. Then it's sand and build a few coats and the most important part the polishing. Any one who paints cars knows of these products and techniques. Like I said it's not as easy as building a melamine mold and just pouring. But here all the prep is done in the mold. A mirror finish there will give you a mirror finish on your piece. I'm pulling multiple pieces out of a mold. I don't know how practical it is for a one-off piece if you don't have the equipment and experience. As far as plexiglass there are adhesives for that but I would back up the sides so they don't bow out.

jdesign:
Please expand on your process. What primer are you using? Do you sand between each coat of primer? On average how many coats of primer do you do? Are you building all your curved edges with the bondo? and so on. If you have any pics, that would be great. Thank you.

Like I said, these are products used in the automotive field and fiberglass mold making process. It's polyester primer. It's a very high build so the number of coats is less than with other types of paint. Maybe three coats on a flat surface more where you do fill work because you end up sanding a bunch off getting things smooth. Yes you sand between coats but only lightly. You really want a high build so you can take that down smooth and go up through the grits into the 1000-2000 or more and polish. It's hard to explain all of this in an email. There are different ways to do different shapes. When you build a mold you have to think of everything in reverse. Sometimes you have to think about draft which is a slight angle in order to get the piece out of the mold if it is deep. I'm just giving you the general idea of how to make a polished mold and where to look for the information. Any fiberglass part tub, boat, RV parts etc. comes out of a mold like this. And automotive primer and polishing techniques are common knowledge to people in that field.
John

Stupid speckles! This is right after coat of Tung Oil, so super shiny.

After it dried.

Well, I guess I can live with the white speckles. Beats trying to rip them out and start over. At least they feel good. *sigh*
Next time we will pour in molds, or should I say next house!
S

silverraven,
Counter looks awesome! I like the shine that you got, looks like the top is wet. What mix did you use? also what did you vibrate with.

I bought a concrete vibrator from Harbor freight last week, just made a sample with it, using the buddy rhodes mix. It actually came out worse than without any vibration.

I think the speckles look great! Having done the concrete countertop thing, I'd personally never try it indoors, but yours turned out lovely. Congratulations on being done!

Thanks guy, I guess it's just me that doesn't like the speckles! I really really wanted just plain dark charcoal, but too late now. Yes, pouring indoors is messy!! Not the actual pouring part, that was actually not bad, but the grinding, ugh!
We used the Quikrete Concrete Countertop mix bought from Lowe's. We also bought the vibrator from Harbor Freight. Definately WEAR EAR PROTECTION using it. Wow, loud! The vibrating helped us, but we poured in place instead of a mold. We wanted to vibrate as much of the 'cream' to the top, rocks to the bottom.
The reason it looked wet in the first photo was just coated with Tung Oil, which I am using to seal it. The second photo is after the Tung Oil has soaked in. I don't know how you could get the shiny finish forever, unless you used something like Waterlox glossy on them? I'm using pure tung oil, so I don't know how Waterlox would work.
Sorry if this post doesn't make sense, my brain isn't working this morning!
S

I talked to the Waterlox people. To get the shiny look you can use the original sealer/Waterlox on the countertops. She said you can't use satin, not sure why?
Hope that helps.
S

silverraven,
Was that a special order from Lowes?
Lowes in NY does not have it on the shelf.

Yes it is special order. I go to the contractors desk at mine. Pretty sad, they know me by name now! I will say if you are trying for a light color, or a 'pure' color like red or blue you probably will want to look for a white cement base. This is gray, and we added 1 bottle per bag of the charcoal color to it. The white aggregate was already in it. Ours ran around $11 a bag here in NC.
S

Silverraven, thanks so much for the pictures and your continual posts. I think the counters look great! I hear you about the speckles, but it will fade from the forefront of your mind. Both areas are uniform, and again, I think really good looking. We're looking for the soapstone look, and I'd be thrilled with your counters, and even willing to deal with the mess. Make sure to keep posting, I can't wait to see your cabs finished.

What is everyone using as a release agent?
Would you use this release agent on plexiglass too?

I haven't been using a releasing agent on my melamine molds and I've had no problems getting it out.

Finally go the kitchen counters ground,and two coats of Tung Oil on them. They still need one more coat.

Dry fit the sink, aka Idiot Check!
You can see the hairline crack right at front of sink. Not structural because there is rebar in it, and really not noticable except in picture.

Still don't like the speckles.

Now onto making doors and drawers. We got 100 year old wormy chestnut reclaimed out of a church. Hoping they turn out well! We've never done any of this before.
S

Hi Silverraven,

What do you think of the Tung oil for the concrete? I've never used it.

Just finished our second bathroom.

It was a comedy of errors, which mostly translated in a lot of extra time. Can't seem to get any good pictures of the surface. The only aggregate can be seen around the sink, otherwise you see very little of it.

The mirror in the background is now going to be replace with a full wall mirror, cut out around the outlets and lights.

overlyoptimistic- Wow! Love the countertops! That is what I wanted mine to look like. But, we can't always get what we want..........
We aren't using our kitchen yet, so I am going simply by test pieces. So far lemon juice, tomatoes, lime juice just seem to pull the tung oil off, but after I put more on goes back to looking good as new. I left a sample out in the rain for a few days, no water spots or damage. It definitely stays dark better than just bees wax. What sealer did you use?
S

I used the Cheng sealer... but that led to some problems. I had enough left over sealer from my last counter (2 years ago). It was stored in the garage-- it doesn't freeze here, so I thought it should be fine. However, the surface dried really milky white. I talked to Cheng and they were helpful but perplexed. So I then stripped it off using epoxy remover and re-grinded. What a pain. I bought new Cheng sealer and that worked well. On the top is three coats of carnuba wax, buffed with the angle grinder using a white scotchbright pad.

What led you to consider tung oil? I use it on our butchblock island, but I never thought to put in on the concrete. Apparently you can also melt a little beeswax into the tung if you wanted to buff it. Not sure if that would help with the acids.

Take care.

I had tried a penetrating sealer by Quikrete and it just didn't darken the counter like I wanted it to. So I was looking for something else. I used bees wax on my son's vanity. It looks great, for a while. I just don't think it would last long term in a kitchen. So, I was reading the Real Milk Paint site about 100% pure tung oil for my cabinet doors and noticed they mentioned using it on concrete. Lots of research later and I found out that boiled linsead oil is used on concrete for bridges, so since I really wanted food safe I figured tung oil would probably be ok for my concrete counter tops. Or, in other words, dumb luck!! Now, I just hope it lasts long term. I am debating on putting wax on top, but am not sure if I would have to strip it to apply more tung oil, and just haven't had time to research it yet.
Boy that sure was a long ramble. Sorry! Did the Cheng sealer darken your concrete? I may have made a mistake not using it, only time will tell......
S

silverraven, I wish I could see your photos! From the descriptions, you're pretty much doing exactly what I'm looking to do

Allways remember when mixing your own mix that it should be 3 parts sand 2 parts aggragate and 2 parts cement ( portland cement) plus on kitchen countertops i reccomend sealing with a food safe wax or read the sealers and make sure there acid resistant. And also never cut directly on your concrete countertop. I reccomend you still use a cutting board. And remember the sealer dont last forever it must be resealed every year.. hope this is helpful. And on the mix dont mix alot use test pieces to ensure a good mix and tweak it to your liking. Too much of one thing will end bad trust me.. practice practice practice!!!

Allways remember when mixing your own mix that it should be 3 parts sand 2 parts aggragate and 2 parts cement ( portland cement) plus on kitchen countertops i reccomend sealing with a food safe wax or read the sealers and make sure there acid resistant. And also never cut directly on your concrete countertop. I reccomend you still use a cutting board. And remember the sealer dont last forever it must be resealed every year.. hope this is helpful. And on the mix dont mix alot use test pieces to ensure a good mix and tweak it to your liking. Too much of one thing will end bad trust me.. practice practice practice!!!