This wooden cement tile mold is one a series of antique wooden cement tile casting molds that originated from India and Egypt. In this mold, the inner grooves were filled with turquoise colored epoxy to create a unique wood-epoxy base for the interior mold pieces.
The Story of this project
The small town of Round Top Texas is famous as a center of antiques. It’s a town where twice a year there are huge antique events for antique and gift shop owners and distributors come to find items for their stores. On a visit to the area, I found a large barn that sold a multitude of wood items, such as doors, windows and other similar wood items. They also had a large collection of wooden cement casting frames from Egypt and Indian.
I was intrigued by the designs and could see that with some love, elbow grease and polish, these essentially abandoned could become truly unique home decor items.
Where to Use
These wooden molds lend themselves to multiple uses both as decor on a wall and even as surfaces for small tables. They add a different dimension to walls that paintings or photos just can’t deliver.
The Process
The process starts by carefully removing all of the different internal pieces from the molds. They are carefully numbered/mapped so that once they are cleaned, sanded, and finished they can be reattached in the right location.
The base surface of the mold is now trimmed if necessary to cut off any rotted or splintered wood. The internal grooves of the base surface are painstakingly cleaned of years of accumulated ‘gunk’ using small Dremel tools and hand sanding.
Once all the pieces and the base have been cleaned and sanded, the interior pieces are reattached using new nails and screws that are of the same type and color as the originals. (The screws are flat head and not phillips head screws as these were not in use at the time these molds were first produced).
Once all the pieces are attached, the mold is finished with a protective coat of satin polyurethane.
For many of the molds, I then build an outer wood box frame from red oak and attached the finished wooden mold within. This frame and mold can now be hung on a wall or placed on a table top or other surface for display.
