Production of colored crushed stone as a business: list of equipment, description of manufacturing technology, nuances of painting

In order to create an interesting and colorful design for a garden or park, they often resort to using painted crushed stone. In addition, such original decorative material is widely used in interior design, when decorating aquariums and decorative flower pots.

The demand for painted crushed stone is quite high and has not fallen for many years. Using the production of colored crushed stone as a business is quite profitable . The technology for its production is not particularly difficult, and it is quite easy to master.

Business documents

To start your own business, first of all, you need to register. To engage in painting crushed stone for the purpose of its subsequent sale, you can register as an individual entrepreneur (IP) or a legal entity - a limited liability company (LLC).

Since such production is not characterized by huge turnover and large industrial production, it is easier and more convenient to register as an individual entrepreneur. To do this you need:

• write an application in the prescribed form to the federal tax service at your place of registration;
• pay the state fee for registration as an individual entrepreneur;
• present a passport or other document that allows you to identify your identity.

After submitting the specified documents, after five working days, you will be able to receive a document confirming your registration as an individual entrepreneur.

When filling out the application, you need to select and indicate the code for your future activity according to the all-Russian classifier of types of economic activities. To do this, you should carefully study the classifier and select all the codes that suit you at the moment and those codes that you plan to use in the future.

In addition, it should be borne in mind that when registering an individual entrepreneur, the taxation system is automatically set to general. In order to change it, you must write an application to change the tax system within three days after you have registered.

The general tax system is the most labor-intensive in terms of accounting and taxes on it are quite high. For the production of colored stones, it is worth choosing a simplified taxation system (STS). It comes in two types – with and without expenses. In the first case, you will pay 15% tax on net profit, and in the second - 6%, but on the entire turnover. What is more profitable for you is up to you personally.

Prices for crushed stone

The price of crushed stone is set based on many considerations. Firstly, you need to take into account the materials used, but, as a rule, the price of painted crushed stone is 20 times higher than usual, because paint for crushed stone is the most expensive thing in its production.

We must not forget about competition, as well as assessment of the sales market. According to experts and based on the reviews of those people who have already started production, it takes approximately 6-7 months to pay off the project.

We must not forget that you must pay tax on any profit; it is advisable to officially register your production. Otherwise, government services for the control of private entrepreneurship may impose a serious fine.

Technology

In order to paint crushed stone according to technology, simple devices and simple steps are sufficient:

• dividing crushed stone into fractions (this stage can be avoided if you buy fractional crushed stone);
• painting crushed stone in a mixer (concrete mixer);
• drying stones.

Let us consider in more detail all stages of the technological process.

1. The first stage of the process is the division into fractions. For this purpose, special sifters are used, which must be purchased. This stage can be avoided by purchasing a certain fraction of crushed stone, but this will lead to an increase in the cost of your products. This is due to the fact that crushed stone separated into fractions costs several times more than undivided crushed stone.
2. In order to paint the stones, concrete mixers are used. The stones are loaded into a concrete mixer together with paint and mixed for 20-40 minutes. A little advice: if possible, it is worth purchasing several concrete mixers to speed up the production process. Here the question arises - “how to paint crushed stone?”, but more on that later.
3. To dry, the painted crushed stone is unloaded onto a metal grid and dried. If the production is small, then the crushed stone can be dried simply in air. When volumes increase significantly, special drying chambers or bunkers are used for drying.

What does “decorative crushed stone” mean?

This is cube-shaped crushed stone of a fine fraction (10-15 mm), painted in bright colors. Industrial enterprises use a coloring pigment that is resistant to external factors and at the same time non-toxic, absolutely harmless to soil and plants. Therefore, without a shadow of a doubt, use it in garden beds, playgrounds, for artistically designed inscriptions on the ground, framing monuments, as well as to create a bright bottom and shore not only in reservoirs, but also in artificially created streams and ponds. Decorative painted crushed stone used for landscape design is resistant to frost and sunlight. Be sure to pay attention to radioactive indicators before purchasing crushed stone. Crushed stone of the first class of radioactivity is suitable for beautifying children's playgrounds, parks, and garden paths, and crushed stone of the second class is used only in construction.

Colored crushed stone in design

Colored crushed stone intended for landscape design is not only a harmonious combination of colors, but also practical application. Gravel maintains the water balance in the soil, allows moisture to pass freely, while helping to preserve it and prevent it from eroding. The technology of laying multi-colored stones prevents weeds from growing. The gravel can be laid out in different styles over and over again if desired, or collected and moved to another location. If necessary, even use it for construction purposes.

Imitation of water with gravel

Painted gravel can be purchased at construction hypermarkets or construction sites. But at the same time you will part with a large sum. But you can paint it yourself. This thought raises a number of questions. What crushed stone is suitable for painting? What size stone should be for best coloring? Is it possible to paint crushed stone at home and how to do it? What paint should I use?

Equipment

In order to organize production, you need to buy at least a minimum set of equipment. It is imperative to buy at least one concrete mixer, and preferably several. Ideally, there should be as many concrete mixers as there are colors in the color scheme of the crushed stone you produce. In addition, crushed stone can be separated into fractions using manual sifting.

As mentioned, buying a sifter can be avoided, but purchasing one is highly recommended. Despite its cost, about 80 thousand rubles, it will pay for itself quickly enough. Its quick payback is due to the fact that the price of crushed stone divided and not separated into fractions differs several times.

To make the drying process faster, you can purchase a drying chamber. At first, there will be no particular need to purchase it. When you begin to expand production, then the issue of purchasing a dryer will arise. If you are making small volumes of crushed stone, then you can simply dry it in a dry, well-ventilated area.

Naturally, it is necessary to purchase small equipment such as shovels, sieves and the like. In addition, it won’t hurt to purchase work gloves and other small items.

We divide the material into fractions

Before you start painting crushed stone, it is recommended to divide the material into fractions. This is necessary not only for ease of use in decoration, but also for uniform coloring.

The operation can be performed either manually, using special sieves with different hole diameters, or using mechanical means, in particular, a “screen” - a mechanism that is designed to separate bulk materials into fractions according to the size of the constituent particles.

Important: sifting will make it possible not only to obtain crushed stone of the size you need, but also to get rid of various debris and contaminants that are always present.

Loading crushed stone into a “screen” (a machine with a vibrating sieve effect), of course, is easier to do using a loader or an ordinary shovel. Again, in the absence of mechanical “rumble” - and this apparatus is not cheap and highly specialized - nothing prevents the use of sieves, the main thing is that the cells in them are of the correct diameter.

During the sifting process, the sieves must be installed at an angle and the work must be done carefully to avoid overfilling. Crushed stone larger than 10 mm in size is best suited for painting, so we separate and select it.

After sifting, the crushed stone must be washed with water; this will remove the remaining dirt, allowing the dye to adhere better to the surface and, accordingly, significantly increase its service life.

It is recommended to rinse the material with running water, stirring it periodically. This can be done with a shovel or other device convenient for you. The most important thing is to let the crushed stone dry after washing - the dye will not be applied well to wet material!

Staff

In order to organize a mini-production for the production of painted crushed stone, it is quite possible to do without hired workers. If you do not plan to work independently, but are only going to engage in administrative activities, then you cannot do without workers.

With average production volumes, you will only need four employees who will work every other shift. The qualifications of the workers are practically irrelevant. Any physically strong man can load crushed stone into a concrete mixer and unload it.

What will be required for implementation?

Starting a business is not at all difficult; you don’t need any special education or skills, because the work is done with your hands, not your head. But it will take some ingenuity to organize the painting process correctly.

When starting, you can go in two ways:

• official registration of activities. You can register an individual entrepreneur or LLC. This way you will protect yourself from possible problems. This option is most often chosen by people who are launching on a large scale, entering the market with large production volumes;
• conducting business without documents. Why don't many people do this when working in this field? Because it is very easy to do business without this registration. All work is done entirely by you, with virtually no assistants. This way it will be possible to produce small volumes, but the income will be very good.

What to choose? It's your decision depending on how you see yourself in the future in this business.

Raw materials

To produce finished products, you will need to purchase raw materials. Colored crushed stone consists of crushed stone itself and dye applied to it.

It is clear that the main raw material is crushed stone. You will buy tons of it. It is advisable to carry out preliminary preparation of the stones before staining, namely, rinse them. This preparation will allow you to obtain a more saturated color.

It is important to remember that the stones must be dried before painting.

Dye is also a raw material, but you won’t buy tons of it, of course. In addition to the coloring pigment, you will also need a binder. PVA glue usually serves as the current binding base. Sometimes polymer paints for crushed stone are used for painting.

What paint and how can you paint crushed stone?

It is not recommended to store raw materials without any protection, since the pores of the stone become clogged, and the quality of the painting will suffer as a result. Dirty crushed stone will increase paint costs, so it will need to be additionally washed and dried, for example, in the same concrete mixer using a gas gun.

Granite crushed stone is painted worse than marble, since marble has higher adhesion.

To paint crushed gravel, use a concrete mixer.

The main requirements for choosing paint are low cost, drying speed (only quick-drying ones are used) and abrasion resistance. As a dye for crushed stone, you can use, for example, acrylic-styrene paint (AK-) for marking and painting roads, acrylic water-dispersion matte (VD-AK-) for painting concrete and brick surfaces, as well as facade enamels resistant to mechanical influence. Their price is not high and they are safer to use, unlike paints with the addition of volatile and toxic solvents.

There are reports on the Internet about the use of nitro enamels (NC paints), as well as mixtures of primer and iron oxide pigment. At the same time, preheating the crushed stone helps speed up the drying process, and when using a mixture of primer, supposedly, the stone absorbs it after heating, which prevents peeling.

It is worth noting that nitro enamels are quite toxic and, as a rule, after about 3-5 years they begin to lose their external characteristics. The use of NC in production is possible only with the use of respiratory protection.

It is best to experiment with the color of crushed stone and the composition of the mixtures. Perhaps you can come up with a better way by adding some of your own components and technological aspects.

Approximate paint consumption: ideally, approximately 3 kg of dye should be consumed per 100 kg of crushed stone.

Ideally, the operating time of a concrete mixer should be no more than 15 minutes, but it all depends on the chosen painting method and drying time.

Video of the painting process:

After the entire production process, the finished colored crushed stone is stored and, if necessary, packaged.

Do not forget that any crushed stone has its own season of demand - summer. In winter, practically no one needs colored crushed stone, because... Construction and site development is not carried out during this period of the year.

Business plan

In order to open a mini-production in your garage, you will need a minimum investment. It will be enough to buy 10 tons of crushed stone, costing 15-20 thousand rubles, the dye for it will cost about 10 thousand rubles. You also cannot do without a concrete mixer, which costs about 9 thousand rubles. In addition, you will need sieves and shovels.

In general, organizing production in your own garage will cost you about 50 thousand rubles. Considering the profitability of such production, you will be able to recoup your investment in less than 3 months of work.

If you plan to open a large production facility, then the costs could be about 900 thousand rubles. This amount includes equipment, raw materials, rent and wages for workers. Such investments will pay off fairly quickly - within 6–9 months.

Description of a business idea for the production of colored crushed stone

The material also goes by other names, for example: colored gravel, painted stone, painted pebbles. Decorative crushed stone is sold in bags. The scope of application of the original finishing material is quite large: it includes landscape design, interior decoration, facade cladding, and even the decoration of aquariums.

Our business assessment:

Starting investments – from 100,000 rubles.

Market saturation is average.

The difficulty of starting a business is 5/10.

The production of decorative colored crushed stone can become a profitable business with good development prospects in Russia. And this despite the fact that the initial stage of opening an enterprise does not require large financial investments. Business can be done even by packing stone: the price of 1 ton of simple crushed stone is about 2,000 rubles, the price of a bag is 300 rubles. If we take into account the relatively high cost of painted pebbles, we can assume the profitability of the enterprise.

Room

For such an organization, in order to comply with the technology for the production of colored crushed stone, even a garage or shed is enough. All this can be organized even at home.

If you are going to engage in serious production, then you should choose premises in the industrial part of your locality. The size of the room will depend on the scale of your production.

It is important that the premises have access to heavy vehicles and trucks. Your main raw material, crushed stone, will be delivered by heavy trucks.

It is necessary that the premises have electricity, water supply and sewerage. Electricity is better with a voltage of 380 watts.

Advertising and sales

In order for production to be profitable, it is necessary to establish sales of finished products. To achieve established sales channels, you need to make yourself known to the consumer.

Depending on the production volume, it is necessary to develop an advertising campaign. If you are planning a fairly large business, then you need to conduct fairly large-scale advertising. Here billboards, advertising on transport, in the media and brochures will come to your aid.

If the production is small, then it is better to work to order. To find clients, you can use a tool such as bulletin boards on the Internet. You need to create your own website.

Given the somewhat seasonal nature of this business, it is necessary to take care of orders during the so-called low season. To do this, it is worth offering your clients a service such as storage of paid goods “until demand”. This will allow production to be loaded throughout the year, and not just during the warm seasons, when people en masse are engaged in landscaping.

Financial calculations: profitability and payback

The amount of initial costs is 1.870 million rubles.

In an 8-hour shift, 1.5 tons of colored crushed stone can be produced. According to the plan, the plant will operate one shift 22 days a month. Under such conditions, it is realistic to produce 33 tons of goods.

The average price for 1 kg of crushed stone is 30-35 rubles. You can promote your product through price dumping, setting the price at 25 rubles/kg. By selling all the products produced in a month, you can get 825 thousand rubles.

The total monthly costs will be 540 thousand rubles.

Net profit will be 285 thousand rubles.

A business on colored crushed stone can pay for itself in 6.5 months. Although it is unlikely that the new enterprise will be able to sell all the goods produced in a month. Seasonality also needs to be taken into account. So the payback period can easily increase to one and a half years.

Table 2. Economic justification for the business idea.

conclusions

The most important component that will ensure the quality of the finished product is paint for painting crushed stone . It is she who should be chosen quite meticulously. It must be resistant to ultraviolet rays, since crushed stone is mainly used outdoors.

The business of producing colored crushed stone should be considered as quite profitable, requiring small initial investments, not labor-intensive and quickly pays for itself. Such production would be a good family business.

Properties and scope of materials

Decorative chips and crushed stone are fine-grained construction materials that are extracted by crushing granite and marble. To give the products an attractive appearance, they are painted in any color using facade paint. Thanks to their high technical and aesthetic parameters, they can be used for a wide variety of purposes. Main consumers of products:

• owners of country cottages who use colored crushed stone and decorative chips to decorate their gardens;
• companies providing landscape design services;
• housing and communal services purchasing materials for decorating flower beds and lawns;
• pet stores buying colored marble chips and crushed stone to decorate their sales area;
• individuals who use materials to create an optimal microclimate in aquariums and terrariums.

Product advantages:

• high degree of structural strength;
• affordable price;
• ease of operation;
• possibility of unlimited use.