Thin High-Strength Concrete Garden Bed Forms

Here’s the blog post for the YouTube Video on making thin high-strength garden panels for a raised bed using one of our Thin ABS plastic molds.

Casting the Concrete Raised Garden Bed Panels

See the Youtube Video

Thin Concrete Garden Box Introduction

Hi everyone, I’m Kent from man about tools and this is video number 3 of my plastic mold series for casting concrete raised garden beds. Today I’ll look at pouring high-strength concrete in these new molds to make some thin, light and sleek panels.

In my last video I made two lightweight concrete blends and poured them in my original molds. These new molds will make a concrete panel thats only 1-1/2″ thick. So we can cut down the weight this way as well.

Thin Concrete Casting

There’s a few challenges involved in casting concrete this thin. It’s not difficult, but there’s a different blend of ingredients and a slightly different method. If you’ve ever mixed and poured concrete before then you are already half way there. And if not, I’ll show you all you need to know.

There’s also some differences between these new plastic vacuum formed molds and the wooden ones for thin concrete that I’ve build in the past. And I’ll get into that a little bit later.

Thin Concrete Episode Topics

So, in this video I’ll show you how I prepare the molds, measure and mix the concrete ingredients, fill the forms, unmold the finished castings, dress them, and then assemble a thin walled garden box.

I’ll be mixing the ingredients from scratch and using a small digital scale to weigh my ingredients. I use this one that I picked up from amazon. It’s inexpensive, accurate, and durable so it ended up to be a good investment.

Concrete Mixing Equipment

I’ll be mixing everything in a pail and I’ll be using a heavy duty drill and mixing attachment. For a few batches you could get by with any corded or cordless drill I’m sure. But, mixing concrete takes some torque so this size is better. You can also find these used in pawn shops and garage sales once in a while.

Okay, let’s get started by prepping these new thin molds.

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