Materials:
- cement;
- sand;
- small crushed stone;
- water;
- plasticizer;
- dye for concrete.
Imitation manufacturing process
To imitate flat cobblestones, you need to prepare a mold. It is made separately for each stone from a flexible but fairly rigid tape. The width of the tape should be at least 5-6 cm. Strips from old window blinds are suitable as it. You can simply cut scraps of linoleum and other similar material into ribbons. The edges of the strips are connected into rings with a stapler or glued together with tape or tape. The rings are made of irregular shapes of different sizes, and laid out on the prepared surface with a gap of 5-10 cm.
They are then secured with wire pins.
Next, the concrete for the base is prepared and placed on the bottom of the mold.
You need a thick mixture. It consists of sand, cement, water, and crushed stone will also not hurt.It is advisable to add a plasticizer for paving slabs, which will increase the plasticity of the composition, as well as strength, density and frost resistance after it hardens. In order not to bother with proportions, you can immediately buy a ready-made screed mixture in bags and dilute it with water. A second, but already painted portion of concrete without crushed stone is poured on top of the substrate. You must first mix it without dye, and then add paint and stir unevenly to create streaks.
By placing concrete along the sides of the form, it is necessary to create a relief under the stone. To do this, it is leveled by hand through a crumpled garbage bag. Then you need to press the mold in a circle to round the edges of the concrete.
After 30-60 minutes the form is removed. The surface of the imitation is smoothed with a brush with stiff bristles soaked in water. It will blur the contours of concrete with paint and give it the necessary realism. If you want to make the stone even more unusual, then individual areas can be tinted with a different color, for example, yellow or brown, if the main color is black.
For the next 5 days, you need to moisten the imitation with water so that the cement sets firmly and the stone does not crack. After this, the seams between the cobblestones must be filled with crushed stone. It is advisable to paint the concrete with a protective compound. This will prevent fraying and give a slight shine to the wet stone.
