When we left off in “Concrete Counter – A Slight Return”, concrete had been poured and the waiting game began. Let’s proceed.
First step is remove from the form. This is straightforward, lightly grind form edges to break edge contact with concrete (so concrete ‘stuck’ to form will not pull chunks out of the counter). Then gently pry form away from concrete and remove. With some judicious cutting, remove the ABS and PVC pipes that we used for faucet and sink penetrations. The flip the form to see how we did.
As you can see, there’s quite a few air holes; not the best finish I’ve ever seen. Lets see if we can fix it.
To try to fill small air holes, one really needs a slurry with no large aggregate. Since I didn’t have a dedicated mix, I just filtered my concrete mix through a fine sieve. Just add water! Take the resulting paste and smear over the surface, rubbing gently into the holes… add a bit of water, rub some more… back and forth, in and out… When your finally done rubbing and all spent, you have a rough, ugly surface. Let it set up.
Now, after letting the slurry set up, it’s time to polish. I started with a 50 grit pad and worked up to 400. Some of the air hole patching held, some did not. So I ended up with a rougher surface than I’d like in some areas. As the polish continues, free-hand the edges to get a nice natural and smooth round-over corner.
With the polish done, it’s time to stain and seal. I had stain left over from the large kitchen pours, but unfortunately only one color (I think it was called “wheat”). I mixed three separate batches, each with varying water dilution so I had very dark down to light tones. Now you just get autistic… I mean artistic. Painted ‘veins’ across the surface with the darker mix and then sort of feathered in the lighter colors along the edges and into the wider surface. I’ve found using a spray bottle at a steep angle spreads out the color in a more natural pattern. Variations in the absorptivity of the concrete surface will do the rest – one of the reasons you don’t polish past a 400 grit or the surface can become to ‘uniform’ to take a natural look. Once the stain dries and sets, clean the surface and apply a sealer. I did 4 coats of sealer, waiting a least 8 hours between coats. I also added a bit more sealer in some of the large air pockets to mostly fill them up. Mostly. The final surface ended up pretty nice; some coarseness from only partially filled air pockets, but by and large pretty pleased with it.
Now if you recall (and as you can see from the images), this was a pre-cast vs pour in place. So we need to transport the the countertop to its final resting place. Rather than try and carry a heavy – and more importantly awkward shape – through the house and around corners, I elected to build a little roller platform from scrap pieces of lumber. Putting the countertop on a full length piece of plywood so it was fully supported across its whole length and sliding on the roller platform worked well and the transfer to the bathroom went very smoothly with lifting only having to happen over thresholds.
Speaking of the destination, there was some prep work to be done there. First I had to remove the old counter tops. That was straight forward, just some trim around the edges and some fasteners underneath attaching the old plywood tops to the cabinets. And of course disconnect the sink plumbing and the sinks. To support the span underneath the middle section of the counter where there is no cabinet, I cut some 10 in lengths of scrap red oak. Cut/chiseled out some slots in the cabinet side to accommodate the new supports flush with the top of the cabinet surface. That’s pretty much all there was to that operation. I did have to remove the large supports in the front as I moved the sink penetration forward by 2 in from the wall to accommodate new in counter faucets and they would block the drain. And I put a couple of new 4 in GRK anchors into the existing wall blocking for each cabinet. Just to be sure.
With that, rolled the counter top into place and simply slid it off the transport layer into place with minimal lifting. Re-install the sinks and the sink plumbing, run a couple of beads of caulk et voila, finis. Well, mostly finis. Haven’t yet installed new faucets. Need to order them and figure out remove the in-wall faucets cleanly with minimal dry wall repair. But the faucets penetrations are ideally positioned relative to the wall and sink edge, so that install should go pretty smoothly once I remove the wall faucets. Maybe next week – but I’ll spare you those details.
That is an amazing project. Thanks for sharing.
I’m no good at stuff like this. 🙁
Me neither. That’s why I’m so impressed by what PM has done.
I’m trying to make out if those basins are back lit, or just colored. They look neat.
Damn, thats beautiful, great work
Really nice work!
Nice looking countertop. Thanks for the write up.
It goes without saying there is a lot of knowledge and talent, art and expertise, in the Glibertorium .
Thanks PM
As small of a group it’s amazing how varied the skill set is.
The IT computed guys here blow my mind. I tried to learn some of that in the 90s and was as bad at it as learning any other language.
“And of course disconnect the sink plumbing and the sinks.” And of course, this is where I would fail.
(Akshually, I’da failed long, long before then. )
Evan I have a young friend who thinks he can’t do anything because he’s young and stupid and he acts like you a victim. Stop being a victim. You need to step up and if nothing else asks people like me or many of the people on the glibs and we gladly help step you through all these things with you and get it done, ask, don’t be a fool and don’t be a victim.
Much Love
https://frinkiac.com/caption/S05E07/479394
Narrator: It doesn’t work.
Yet I smoke, and am thin,
/sexy old man
They were two separate titles. A comma would have made all the difference.
Meh. I learn quickly but I don’t much experience with handiwork. I’ve never owned a home, so I’ve never had any incentive nor need. I also don’t have any internal desire to, frankly, but in proper context I’m sure I’d develop one.
The “I’da failed” remark is based on not ever having my own home. I deleted it cuz no one likes Debbie Downer. I ain’t Tres and don’t actively seek to attract such baggage.
Fake it till you make it.
It’s worked for me.
Narrator: Yeah, nice try.
The countertop looks good.
Have you ever vibrated the form after pouring the concrete? May help reduce air pockets. Excessive vibration could result in the aggregate settling to the bottom.
But aggregate at the base would actually turn into a stronger form?
Probably not stronger but may allow the aggregate to be exposed when flipped over which may add some decorative possibilities. My concrete experience is structural so I’m just thinking through the decorative applications.
…These euphemisms are getting more constructive.
Wait till you see the tool Evan. Feast your eyes on this long hard vibrating bad boy. https://www.ebay.com/itm/202165596205?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-166974-028196-7&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=202165596205&targetid=2274951440814&device=m&mktype=pla&googleloc=9210535&poi=&campaignid=21026312134&mkgroupid=170059648304&rlsatarget=pla-2274951440814&abcId=9381221&merchantid=8570244&geoid=9210535&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21026312134&gbraid=0AAAAAD_QDh-QUfLH3bllDQzkYGUjA3iFi&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxvHEstjrkAMVKwCtBh048QbXEAQYAyABEgJkRvD_BwE
I was expecting a sawzall with a rubber fist on it.
I have several
Sawzalls, somewhere I also have the rubber hands off of a CPR dummy. I had forgotten about those until just now.
OT- Earlier today I took an online assessment for Data Annotation, one of those companies that has folk correct, edit and prioritize AI responses to prompts. Gave me a few example prompts and two responses to ’em. My talk was to pick which was best based on the criteria the ‘client’ asked it. Then I was to write a short paragraph on why I thought one was better than the other.
I’m fairly convinced that much, if not straight-up all, of this is just free info about various prompts their LLM can add to its databank. Interesting process to get used to, for better /worse. This would be like my old SEO gig where you pick from a pretty big lists of assignments, so I have done it before. *shrug* Payments back then, ~2018, were weird on PayPal, which this place and others also use to deposit pay.
Has PayPal become more reliable since? I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have, but still seems strange. But such is the life of most freelance work these days, yeah? Trying to make sure my internal barometer on ‘sensible’ is properly calibrated.
Thanks, all.
Aurora is amazing tonight. 8-8.5
I just saw it came to central IN! Went out 30min after I saw local pics, but either too bright in our neighborhood, too cloudy, or too late.
That’s a natural phenomenon I’ve never seen and I’d like to. *kicks pebble*
So it goes.
It may be bigger tomorrow night.
This greatly pleases me. Thanks.
Got to see Aurora Australis a couple of years ago.
That’s really cool RN.
How far south were you?
I drew up and had the local metal shop cut out a fancy guard for my trucks air compressor yesterday. Had to play with it with the aurora.
https://ibb.co/BHFjRZ0H
https://ibb.co/m5p73XYt
Is it supposed to be a fillet or groove weld all the way around?
Circumferential, not completely accurate as to what I do but we’ve been using it for 40+ years now, so yeah.
https://ibb.co/1fCP1jSG
I’ve been makimg drawings for weldments for 20+ years now so those little things catch my eye.
One a different subject, what size is that loader you have the forks on? I’ve been looking at doing that for a while now. Figure it would be more versatile than a 15K Hyster.
Plinked, my loader is a 1983 Dresser/International M10A, it’s rated at 10,000 lb but it will pick 15,000. For some reason they put a low volume pump in it which is different than the high volume pump in the loader version. Makes it slow. Great machine though, has a DT466 in it.
Also has side shift, and a tilt head on it. Makes it pretty handy. Will pick about 11’ at the end of the forks.
Forks are a few inches longer than 10’. I wish I had made them 12’ but I followed some ‘rule’ I found about fork extensions not being longer than 60/40 proportional to the length of the fork inside the extension. Oh well. They are long enough for the project I built them to handle. Not that good for working in the imaginary junk yard I don’t own.
I paid less than $1 a pound for my machine. Closer to 60c a pound. Thought that was a good deal. https://ibb.co/BHqyxzPC
There were a bunch of relatively cheap 966s on marketplace recently, probably worked to death. There is a farmer in Fairfield, WA with an CAT IT-18 for sale almost a year now. It has hay forks and a bucket but I have found some loader forks on marketplace.
That is a nice setup. Side shift, fork positioners and fork rotation.
I worked with a cat skinner running a similar vintage TD25, he preferred it over a CAT
That right there, is fucking badass. Well done on all counts.
Thanks. Credit goes to my wife for suggesting I go grab it for pictures. We were out taking pics of the kids on the merry go round. They wouldn’t stand still though. https://ibb.co/svZmn0qV
This is a great documentary on the urban fights in Iraq in 2004.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/11/11/the_last_600_meters_the_battles_of_najaf_and_fallujah.html
PBS finished the documentary in 2007 but just released it yesterday. The other media is reporting it is because it shows our combat arms military in a positive light and that just wasn’t permissible to do then because of the politics surrounding the Iraq War.
As a retired Soldier I have a few nits to pick over the movie. The US Army fought in both Najaf and 2d Fallujah with the Marines in even numbers. Except for the SF and PSYOPS troops the Army is not in the film. However, that does not detract from how well the film captures urban combat.
WARNING: The film is brutal and shows scenes that can shock. Luckily the film can’t capture the smells.
Thank you Double E. One day when I’ve got a full glass and a stomach, I’ll watch it.
This is the platoon I ETSed from at the end of my service time: https://www.nationalguard.mil/News/Article-View/Article/590161/oregon-national-guard-platoon-awarded-presidential-unit-citation/
If it wasn’t for Rumsfeld and Macgregor’s grandiose ideas of a limited invasion force, it’d be me too or marble in a national cemetery. Was halfway out the door and got tagged for mobilization, then cut loose when the mob plan got downsized.
Happy hump day to all you figments of my imagination.
🐪🫶🥑
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp1ZluX4aYs
🎶🎶
Are these Glibs in the room with us now, Sean?
I’m here, for what little that’s worth
Yes!
Я плод вашего воображения.
Какая крыса на поезде!
Kumusta?
“pass the ketchup” ?
“brave choir”?
Good morning, Sean, U, Ted’S., and Roat!
Awesome work sir.
+1
suh fam
whats goody
GM 🙂
The nights are getting cold. The indoor critters are getting real cuddly. I hope the outdoor critters have a good place to sleep.
Squirrels are big on index funds so they should be fine.
As long as they don’t take a bath
“Rich ‘sniper tourists’ allegedly paid $90K to shoot civilians — including kids — during ‘human safari’ trips to Sarajevo”
https://nypost.com/2025/11/12/world-news/rich-sniper-tourists-allegedly-paid-90k-to-shoot-civilians-including-kids-during-human-safari-trips-to-sarajevo/
Not exactly a dangerous game.
Send them to Portland?
And no, I don’t actually believe the story.
“You just lead them a little less…”
Morning, all y’all,
Cool 28 degrees to start the day but wood stove don’t care
Back to the 70s today. I’m wearing bell bottoms.