It turns out that mortaring bricks together is really difficult.
I've been trying to do it with Duquesne Superfine. This product is (by
the data sheets) identical to Thermal Ceramics Superset. I know that
Euclids uses Superset, and Paragon use K-Bond, also by Thermal
Ceramics.
I got the Superfine from a local glass blower for free. It was a bit thinner than it is supposed to be, so I elected to try to brush it on. It worked ok at first, but I was getting it too thick, and after air setting it had almost zero strength. Certainly not enough to move the floor around. The picture here is what it looks like. Pretty messy. Brush the mortar on, then rub the bricks together. You have to be quick. The mortar reaches an initial set quickly, and the bricks have to be in just the right position. If you break that set, you have to start all over again. And if they're not in the right position you have to break them apart scrape it off, and try again.
After that failure I by chance, was able to initiate an email
conversation with Arnold Howard at Paragon. Arnold gave me some
hints, and I decided to give it another go with the superfine. I
definitely had some more success. In fact, I'm pretty sure at least
some of that mortaring will survive. I mortared all of the rows
together. As Arnold instructed, I prepped the mating surfaces by
sanding them together, dipped one of the bricks, and then massaged
them into place. Same as before though, you have to be quick, and you
have to move the bricks into the perfect position without stopping the
massaging. As soon as you stop the mortar fixes and that's it. After
it has set, don't touch it the bond is very fragile, and must be left
to cure without much handling.
Here's a pic of the final product. All of the rows here have had the bricks mortared end to end. They're setting (for at least 24 hours) and awaiting being mortared together. The problem is that in order to mortar those rows together according to Arnolds instructions I need a 34 inch wide pan full of mortar. That's a lot of mortar. So I wasn't quite sure how I was going to proceed.
Inproheat were kind enough to
give me a sample of some high temperature cement in a tube. The tube
is compatible with small size caulking guns. While I was doing the
mortaring of the rows I did a test of the cement. I cemented brick to
brick and brick to m-board. This stuff is great. Very strong bonds, I
couldn't break the bond, the brick broke first. Much stronger than the
mortar. It's a lot more expensive, and has a lower duty temperature,
but I don't care. The cost isn't exhorbitant, and I need comparatively
less (due to waste), it's cleaner and more convienient. Much easier to
do a clean, neat job. It doesn't set immediately like the mortar does,
so you really need a perfectly flat surface to support the work as you
go. The duty temp is only 1500 C but that is plenty for stoneware. Not
enough for foundaries, but I don't run a foundry.
Just run a nice generous bead of the cement and then mate the bricks
together. Of course you want to sand the surfaces together as Arnold
mentions.
I am not yet finished the floor, but I'm getting closer, and with the cement, at least now I'm sure about what I'm doing. I'll update this page when I've finished and I have a picture of the finished floor.
Damage so far: elements and stuff $200 bricks $450 6 tubes cement $36 total $686 Update
I've been cementing the various sections of the floor together, and yesterday I brought them to the studio and set them on the base! The base is the mild steel which is 34 inches diameter then 32 inch diameter M-Board which is the same size as the base. The base sits nicely on top.
I sanded the base quite heavily to make it even. I think that's pretty
important, especially the outside bit so that the rows of the wall
brick have an even base. There's one section that isn't quite flat,
but the mortar is very difficult to sand, I think it's close enought
at this point.
Here's a pic with one row of the element brick in place. I wrapped a webbing band around it to make it cohesive so I could place it just right. I think I'll probably play a lot more, rubbing back and forth so that the mating surfaces match nicely. Also, I'll probably sand the tops of this course before adding the rest. The foundation has to be right.
