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Originally Posted by 125shifter
They use a mold and pour it upside down. They also use a shaker to get the airbubbles out, but they said you could probably get them out adequately with a rubber mallet on the sides of the mold.
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That's the way most people recommend doing it, but I'd be stuck trying to flip it and place it with my wife- there would be much complaining and I imagine she would likely drop it at some point during the move.
I figured out what was wrong. The mix was entirely too dry, causing me to put too much mix in (rather than flowing smoothly, it was clumping and wouldn't spread evenly), and my initial material projection was a tad high even though I went through it about ten times. To illustrate how bad the mix was, in two hours I removed the concrete and reset the mold; I'll even be able to reuse the rebar. So I'm out $16 in concrete, $3 in caulk and about 4 hours of labor. Not too steep a price this time.
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How much for a 16 x 3 desktop?
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Assuming you have a desk that would hold the weight (and wouldn't have to reinforce it), the cost of the top would probably be about $90 (mold materials, rebar and concrete). There's a really good book on it by a man named Cheng. The total cost for my ~21 sq ft top was $74 at HD. The actual counter base cost was about $85 for lumber, hardware and Durock.
edit: mold materials might run it up a bit. I'd say a 16' x 3' mold might cost closer to $110 to make but the concrete wouldn't be more than $40.