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The smaller plastic mold has 1/2 sand, 1/2 marble meal and one pit lime. Alum and casein, with two layers of galvanized 1/2" square wire is inside it. I floated enough very rich lime milk on top to level the mortar and let it set awhile, then pored off the limewater and carbonate crust. That might make the white surface I'm looking for. I guess that would be like coating a ready wall with lime milk first.
Day 2, It still wasn't dry and was cracking, this isn't going to work. The larger mold made of Teflon has the same except it only has one wire layer and is waiting for the intonico. I put it into a 200 degree oven, that seemed to work but it's not the way to go. Both of these tests failed.
 
This is another idea I'm trying. I got a 1/4 inch composite board, cut the 1/2 inch square cage wire a half inch larger then the board and bent it over the edge, glued the wire to the board with Gorilla glue, sprayed the glue with water to make it expand. When it was dry I painted it all with an acrylic mortar glue and put a 1/4 inch brown coat of 1/2 sand, 1/2 pit lime and pushed it into the wire spaces so it wouldn't have air in it. This worked great and was very light.
The next fresco board is even better, it uses metal lathe and cement glue in the mortar, it's two pages forward.
Ok.. I got it now. Two months later.. 5-11-4
The rough coat is 32 oz. of white cement plus a cap full of cement binder, 16 oz. large sand, 16 oz. of medium grit sand, 1:2. This made a rough coat 3/8 ths of an inch thick. In the middle of the mortar I put a sheet of metal lath. This dried for three days, I soaked it well and spread a layer lime mortar 1:1 with large sand only the thickness of the sand and let it dry. Now I am not limited to the 12x12 of ceramic tiles.
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