Concrete Pot

I've done a lot of mental designs for outdoor concrete flower pots, but resisted casting them because of having to address the freeze-thaw issue of the weather.  In addition even moderately sized pots tend to be fairly large. I've only completed two.

The planter above was built using the same wooden mold as the cube fountain and measures 12" on each side.  There is a .5" reveal on the bottom to give it the look of "floating" above the ground.  The recessed "woven" patterns on the sides are created by the same random-cut method used on the the conference room logo.  But here I used Polytek 7420 rubber casting material to create four insert panels in the box of the mold.

This is the rubber mold used to create the molds of the side panels, and one of those panels.

My earlier concrete pot suffered a mold failure during the casting process.  Although it was built true and square, the pressure of the concrete in the mold caused it to bulge.  Unfortunately this bulging non-squareness is visible in the finished work.  On the bright side, it is because of this, that I deliberately built a wooden box to hold the required cube shape of both the planter above and the cube fountain.

Concrete Tea Light

While making the earlier candleboxes I became fascinated with the surface texture of the concrete lit by candlelight.  In this box, instead of trying to pass the light through it, either by glass or with slots, I wanted to create something where the flame would illuminate the concrete itself.  A slot cut in the top allows the heat and smoke to escape.  It measures 4" on each side.