September - Paver Making End of Month Report

Total completed paver area: 6.34 square metres

A depressingly long time away for a completion date has forced me to re-think things a little. I have now decided I'll probably buy some complimentary pavers - more specifically london cobblestone pavers to act as a border to my hand made ones. As they're a more rustic looking paver they should fit the bill nicely.

They come in sheets and will fit around the edge of my area pretty well - they are almost exactly the same width as my proposed concrete seats, and 1 pallet (51 sheets) is very close to my required 45 sheets. 1 pallet costs about $1170 + freight (although they're currently listed on ebay for $700 + freight). If I use these as a border - it reduces my area for the hand made pavers to 28 square metres. Optimistic times for this area are at about 4 to 5 months - instead of a year, without buying any extra moulds.

Progress - Picture updates

Pic update: these are fairly high contrast pics taken in the middle of the day, so hard to see whats going on. will post some more in better light conditions when I get a chance. I've completed approx. 1/9th of the total area so far....

Bad news on the paver making front

Rainy days have made me contemplate how far I am actually behind. I currently have 6 paver moulds which make 0.75 square meters per run. The following illustrates:
At this rate - it will take me about a year to finish it if I continue on with 1 run a week... bad news when I was hoping to have them laid by the end of summer. I definitely need to up my average runs per week, and also bite the bullet and buy more moulds. It'll cost me about $380 to buy 2 more 40x40 and 2 40x20 moulds from phoenix moulds - unless I can find another mould maker with cheaper prices or even make moulds myself. At the moment I'm seriously considering the latter option if I can source the correct materials. This company called chemind looks like they have what I'm after - item 7: cold cure cast polyurethane mould system.

Rain

As I sit here in the middle of my 5 days off - it has now been raining for the last 3 days straight. It looks like I'm going to have to build some kind of rain shelter to ensure things get back on track with my paver making. Some tarps and tent poles should do it - at this rate I'll defintely need it so I can step my production up to 2 runs a week instead of 1 to make a summer deadline.

August - Paver Making End of Month Report

Things have ramped up this month - no rain means plenty of paver making time on the weekends this last month. I now have over 4 square meters of pavers made, but really - it's still bugger all when I've got to get 42 squares done. The next few weeks I have some opportunities to double my production with a couple of days off at strategic times through the middle of the week. Picture update coming soon.