How to make a mold from scrap metal and cast paving tiles cheaply

To improve a house or summer cottage area using ready-made tiles, you will need a lot of money. But by making a honeycomb mold from scrap metal, you can cast any quantity of paving slabs and, thereby, save the family budget by a tidy sum. To implement this idea, you do not need expensive materials or special skills. Almost any adult can do the job.

Will need

Materials:

steel strip;
a piece of cardboard;
round or profile rods;
screenings, cement and water;
liquid for lubricating the mold.

Tools: square and marker, vice, grinder, upholstery knife, welding, hoe-shovel, container and trowel.

The process of making a honeycomb mold and casting paving slabs

Using a grinder, we cut the required number of rectangular plates of equal length from pieces of old steel strip, which we clean from dirt and rust using a grinder.

We cut the narrow edges of the plates for welding.

On a piece of thick cardboard, using a marking compass, we draw a circle with a radius corresponding in size to the characteristic size of the future paving slab.

Along the length of the circle, we successively plot the radius six times and fix these points. We connect them using a ruler and a marker with straight lines and get an equilateral hexagon inscribed in a circle. We cut it out using a wallpaper knife and use it later as a template.

We cover the template with six plates cut from a steel strip and connect them along the contact lines using a welding machine.

To save metal, we weld four hexagons and connect them together with four pairs of plates welded at an angle and three single plates.

We cover the central “cavities” on both sides with round or profile rods and weld them from the outside to the protruding sides of the “honeycomb” on both sides. They are needed for laying and raising the mold after casting the tiles and giving it additional rigidity.

As a result, we obtain a mold for simultaneous casting of eight paving slabs.

To do this, mix the screenings and cement in the required proportions with the addition of the required volume of water.

Mix the mixture thoroughly with a shovel-hoe and fill the “honeycombs”, which are already lubricated from the inside with a separating liquid, with a homogeneous mixture and lay them on a thin layer of screenings.

After waiting for some time for the mixture to set, carefully lift the mold by the handle-rods. We move it to another place and repeat the process again, which can be repeated many times.