How to Make Mini Cement Bricks

.Cement has taken a great part of molding and creating varies shapes, where you can use your imagination to build an amazing build using cement.

In this instructable, I will show you how to make Mini Cement Bricks that are considered very useful for many people just like an architecture where he can use these bricks to form a building that he design it virtually. It's a pretty easy process that you will enjoy making it.

• cement( Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)) or you can buy from any shop that sells cement near you.
• sand
• water
• container
• plastic flat tray with 3cm edges
• 2mm iron rods( 2mm iron rods) any kind of metal it doesn't matter
• smooth wooden sticks( smooth wooden sticks)
• mini cement bricks(
• flexible shaft( Flexible shaft) with drill
• Soft Pastel( Soft pastels mini, cardboard wallet of 24)
• brush ( paintbrush)
• White glue ( white glue)
• mini sand screener

To begin with, I started my work by designing the mold of the bricks by using TINKERCAD where you can easily design your project and then 3D print it.

I've designed the mold with about length 14cm and width 7.5 cm, and each brick with length 2.5 cm and width 1.3 cm.

If you have a 3D printer you can easily print them or if you don't have one you can order them online just like me. View the mold on tinkercad Mini Cement Bricks.

Sand screening is an important step to do, where you get some sand that will still not enough pure for the cement mixture of the bricks, so you should garble them using a 1mm sand screen and make sure to get rid of all big and small stones in the sand.

NOTE: It's very important to use pure sand because that will not affect the produced bricks that may crumble while removing it from the mold.

Use a container of 0.75 L capacity to mix the elements of the mixture.

Add sand to the bottom of the bowl and make sure to fill the container up to 1/3 of the whole space.

There are several types of cement:

• Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)
• Portland Pozzolana Cement (PPC)
• Rapid Hardening CementQuick setting cement
• Low Heat CementSulfates resisting cement
• tBlast Furnace Slag Cement
• High Alumina CementWhite Cement
• Colored cement
• Air Entraining Cement
• Expansive cementHydrographic cement

In my instructable, I used the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) which is the most widely used type of cement which is suitable for all general concrete construction.

After choosing the type of cement, add the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) that I prefer over the sand and fill the container up to 3/4 of the whole space.

After adding the elements to the container, you should mix them very well using a stick or by a spatula and make sure to to check the internal sides of the container by mixing all the internal aspects of the container and get a strong mixture.

Now your mixture is thirsty, just needs water to be ready.

Before you add water you should make a small hole on the top of the mixture to make sure that the water will go down all the way to the bottom. Add water slowly over the sand-cement mixture and start stirring slowly by a stick till it mixes together very well and gives a strong cement.

After the process of mixing, you should keep the mixture for 4 to 6 min at rest, this makes the elements of the mixture and especially cement stronger and more efficient.

This step is optional and it may be necessary sometimes to get the right mixture.

If your mixture is still more liquid then you should add a little bit of sand and stir the mixture as well till you have the perfect where you can feel the roughness of the liquid inside. this method makes the mixture stronger and rough.

NOTE: This step can be the solution to the problem of adding an excess of water to the cement mixture.

Download the file of the mold that I mention above in the first step and print it using a 3D printer, then set them up on your workbench to continue the next step which is molding by cement.

Prepare a concrete mixture and make sure to not keep the cement dry but a little liquid, then start filling the brick's mold with cement till it becomes almost full.

After that, you should grab something smooth just like what I use a smooth wooden stick and then spread the cement to all the corners and parts of the mold and settle the cement allover in a smooth way.

NOTE:

• To get rid of air bubbles in the mold you should insert the stick in each rectangle of the mold and then resettle the cement to become a smooth surface.
• Dip the smooth wooden stick with water to facilitate the process of smoothing the surface of the mold.

The Drying process is an important step in concrete molding that needs patience by giving it enough time to become a strong solid.

Generally, it takes up to 24-48 hours until the cement dries perfectly.

The drying process also depends on the amount of water that you add to the mixture, so after waiting for the cement to dry now you can remove some bricks from the mold to ensure that is solid enough or it needs more time to be perfect.

When the bricks are dried, now you should be careful while extracting the bricks from the mold by pulling it slowly without destroying it.

Note: To easily remove the bricks from the mold you have to put some oil on all the inner sides of the mold, that will helps you to get the bricks off easily.

Some extracted bricks will have a rough surface and a little adds on it, and this may affect the building process just like having an oblique mini wall that will be more able to fall off.

For that, I used sandpaper to smoothen the surface of the cement bricks and make them perfect to use from all it;s sides.

Now you can enjoy building some awesome projects that may come to your imagination.

View the other Instructables that I used these mini cement bricks to build them: