Building A Hypertufa Planter Using A Mold

By Jamie Boyle

Here is something people can try, build your own hypertufa planter by building and creating your own forms or molds. This is something my brother did yesterday and I was quite impressed with the results he had. I know I wish I was there helping him build the molds and forms for this hypertufa project.

The first thing my brother did was designed a picture of his creation or idea using a program he has 3D Studio Max. Something he has been using for a while now and a great way to plan your hypertufa project with a visual picture. The best way to get great results is by proper planning.

Here are a couple of pictures of his project idea for his hypertufa planter.






As you can see with the above pictures of the hypertufa pot you can see he showed a side view picture of how he created the shape of the sides of this. He used 2x6's and some plywood and plastic to do this hypertufa mold for the planter. My brother also used chicken wire to give it some extra strength as well, some people can also use fibre mesh wish works great and prevents it from cracking.

The overall size of this planter was 16" wide, 21" long and 11" high. It took about 4 hours to get the mold built and about 1 hour to mix the hypertufa and set it in place. The best part that my brother likes is shaping it and molding it to give it that aged look like ancient times. I know he has some excellent ideas that he plans on building some more. I think his trip to Italy and visiting Rome has given him some great ideas.

Here is the final results of his hypertufa planter that he did. He just took the mold off today, as you need to take the mold off after 24 hours in order to be able to mold it and shape it. Take a look at what he did.

Here is one picture he did as he began taking off the mold. You can see some of the wood still on the planter that he used to create it.









Now this hypertufa planter was relatively inexpensive to create. It is time consuming building your molds but it's a great way to make your own pots and planter for your garden. The only thing that was hard about this that my brother had a hard time doing was taking the form out of the center of the planter as you need a form for the outside and inside. You can see in the picture above the plywood is still in the center but I will update this with post with it when he gets it out. Another thing that I will show you is another picture of the hypertufa planter with all the sides roughed up as these ones were not done yet to give it that aged look. The total cost to build this planter with mold and all the materials was around $16-$20. Not too bad considering you will have an excellent gardening pot for years to come with the nice artistic look.



Well my brother got out the inside form and he took a couple more pictures with of his hypertufa planter. He also roughed up the sides and smoothed out the top and took out any imperfections. The final results look pretty good, I plan on making some planters and pots for myself too this weekend.












Hypertufa is art so enjoy doing it and make it your own. The next project I think we will be doing is making some pilars using a mold and hypertufa. I will show you all when we get this done. If anyone has any comments or things they've done please share.