CEEADSALASKA

The best place to start with this may be a definition - modified from Wikipedia:

Hypertufa is an artificial stone made from various aggregates bonded together using Portland cement. It is intended as a manufactured substitute for natural tufa, which is a slowly precipitated limestone rock; being very porous, it is favorable for plant growth.

Hypertufa is popular for making garden ornaments, pots and land forms. It is relatively light compared with terra cotta or concrete and can withstand harsh winters, at least down to -30 °C (-20 °F).

Hypertufa was invented for use in alpine gardens. Alpine gardeners formerly used antique animal watering troughs, which became rare and expensive.

 NOW THEN, CAROL'S INSIGHTS AND INSTRUCTIONS:

 ** I used large RX bottle to form the drainage holes and decided to make little feet, too for better drainage.

 ** I used my largest kitchen bowl, lined it with a trash bag, using a large RX bottle to form the large drainage hole and made 3 round feet which I attached while still wet. I just carefully turned the bowl form and damp hypertufa upside down and stuck the feet on after removing the bowl and trash bag covering the bottom. Then I covered the thing back up with bag and let cure.

** Woofie, before you go to the hyper tufa threads, here's a simple one for you... 1/3 peatmoss (I screen it), 1/3 perlite (wear mask, dusty), 1/3 portland cement. Mix well adding water little at a time. Put a trash bag in your form (I used large round bowls, rectangular kitty litter plastic boxes, round pots (like those big wide hanging type) set 2 large Rx bottles in each form and start making mud pies and pressing the mix around the bottom first, circling the rx bottles to a thickness of about 2 inches or less. bring mix up the sides and let set in the trash bag closed tightly overnight at least. At this point (if it feels stiff enough) get a piece of plywood, place on top of trough and try to turn it over without breaking it. It's still in the bag, now uncover the bottom and push in the RX bottles (see your drainage holes?) now make a little more mix and patty up a few legs, short squat, you can score the trough bottom and leg top and wet a little and press together. Now just cover the bag and let cure for at least 3 days, then turn over and remove form, clean up rough edges or remove pretty veined leaves you had taped on inside of mold before pressing mix over and see what kind of design you've made. Then put in back in bag to let cure for a week. After that you're done. I'll cure for a month out in the rain, or you can hose it. enjoy Forgot to say, wear rubber gloves.

** Woofie: Here's a tip that will save you money and thoughts of suicide.
Don't buy the cement until you are ready to use it. Otherwise it will have solidified into its own shapeless shape and be good for nothing at all.

** (From Sharran) Equil, in case Carol is not around at the moment, scoring is when you add two pieces of either clay, or in this case the crete mix, together...you score (scratch, like with a fork to leave shallow grooves) both the trough and the part of the leg that will attach to the trough in that spot. Add a little bit of water and it forms a "slip"...sort of a glue of the crete, (or of the clay, if you were working in ceramics.) It becomes a part of itself when it cures, and leaves a virtually seamless connection.

 ** (From Sharran) Yep, Gloria, you are right...when working with either clay or concrete, the use of the material itself for bonding is a sure fire winner, you have to get it to bond to itself, fuse is a better word for the chemical event that takes place, (I think.) Been a while since I was in the classroom!

Glue or other substances just won't do the job.

Another thing that can be a problem: the material has to be of the same consistency...in other words, the trough and the leg have to have basically the same amount of water, should be from the same batch of mixed crete, and should be at the same level of dryness.
Same with clay.

Maybe Carol knows a bit more about this than I do, so I am waiting for her to correct my errors if I am wrong,

** Shar, you covered it well, I would only stress that you try to bond the feet as soon as possible, which was for me overnight and still in the trash bag, but firm enough to turn over and remove mold without breaking. That's only for when you use the mix in the INSIDE of mold. If you molded the mix on the OUTSIDE of the mold, it would already be upside down and you could put feet on it at the same time. In either case be sure you have the mold with the trash bag between it and the mix. I use big trash bags so I can do the complete operation within the bag and still use it to store and cure the trough.
Weez, winter is a good time to make some, remember when I started to use styrofoam boxes? Well, I still have them stored half done with nails sticking out of the parts that will need attatching (smart cookie, huh?), so we could finish them and make more. I still have my big blue plastic tubs with screened peat moss and perlite. All we need is portland cement and time.

** (From Sharran) Equil., you will love making them, and they are really easy. Just follow Carol's perfect directions. Placing leaves in the mold, which she mentioned, is a fun thing, it will leave impressions and create a design on the outside.

 ** (Carol's notes on using styro containers for forms) Notice I cut four inches from the top which made a frame shape on each one. Then attatched the frame shapes back to the lids with headless nails (galvanized), you can just push them through, but at angles for better grasping. So, you have two lids attatched to frames..not very deep, but usefull. And two bottoms. This will make four troughs, with two drain holes in each.

** Now I need Weez to take pics of my progress after that (my camera broke) But I can describe it. The intact bottom, larger ones I turned upside down in a trash bag, spread mix all over bottom keeping drain holes open and coming down the sides a few inches and stopped. Don't remember why, flood, hunting trip, whelping pups... anyway I knew I needed a wet edge (as was discussed earlier) but made do with sticking same galvy nails into wet mix at angles (My smarty pants move), so when I resume project with new wet mix it would bond and also thought sticking same galvy nails in styrofoam on up the sides would keep things in a continuous flow and when reaching the top edge, continue down the inside, maybe 4-5 inches (to keep styrofoam from showing if soil settles. Maybe try feet by mixing straight portland cement as bonding agent to (I'm thinking...) some rather flat, but shaped to corners, feet. Whaddaya think? Weez? Want to try finishing them and taking pics? Maybe when we quit gurgling and draining fluids from upper body? And thanks to Dennis for coming by and giving us a clue..

~~(A little Q&A)  ~~Equil: Why did you cut out the center of the one lid to the styrofoam cooler if you want to use it as a form?

Her Oddness: Equil, the coolers were too deep and cutting them to the proper depth left that much left. So not to waste that kinda frame part at the top and reattatch it to the lid permanently, I essentially made four troughs out of two coolers by using the otherwise discardably (is that a word?) lid and cut off piece. Try to look at it as cutting a closed box in half. It leaves you with two open topped boxes. The lids were easy to reattatch by the galvy nails, stuck in at angles, rather than straight down. And no, not forms, but incorporated right into the troughs themselves. That was what got me to thinking about them. The insulating factor, slower to heat or cool as many rock garden and trough plants need