36" in Seattle

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

So, you (generically, perhaps slightly toward Neil2) don't suggest using lime in a parging mix? Just 5:1 sand/Portland?

And just to reiterate an old topic, all lime is the same? Lowes and Home Depot don't have lime in their concrete section, only in their garden section. That's the right stuff (for this parging mixture or for homebrew mortar, etc.)?

[vintagemx0]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I don't know if "garden variety" (pardon the pun...) has any masonry attributes, but at my local HD store in the masonry section, I've seen Type S and Type N. I haven't used any raw lime on my project, but I did save this link in case I had to study-up;

National Lime Association FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions

Hope that helps.

Did you guys get swamped with rain today? It royally poured down here in Portland.

Regards,

Ken Morgan

[RTflorida]

Re: 36" in Seattle

From what I have read, there is a difference between garden line and masons lime.you need to look for type s or type n lime.Home Depot and Lowes probably won't wont have it, but will have the garden lime which is not the same. You may have to go to the bricksupplier to get the hydraded masons lime (s or n)

RT

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Looks like trusty 'ol Salmon Bay in Ballard has mortar lime, for all you Seattle folks. That's where I got fireclay, and they have huge bags of Perlite, but it's the micro-fine stuff, so I suggest getting the medium grade vermiculite (and perlite) from DeYoung's Farm and Garden in Woodenville instead (I haven't been there, but they're the only place I've found around that has the larger grades in the 4cuFt bags).

The rain in Seattle has been pretty substantial. I have pretty high standards when it comes to deluges since I'm from North Carolina. I've never seen real "rain" in Seattle, but it has been drizzling on very respectable level lately, even short spurts of actual rain.

'course, the heaviest rain I ever experienced in like was in Tikal, like being under a waterfall for thirty minutes straight.

[MarkHohn]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I have been watching your thread.
You have plenty of rebar in the hearth slab. I think I counted 3 pieces of 1/2" in the lintels, that?s good.
Your concrete was to dry when you poured. (You knew that) You tamped it down with a post. (That was good.) You probably got most of the voids out. You kept it wet after you poured. (That was good) Without looking at it I would think the hearth slab is fine. If you wanted to support the center I would recommend going to pacificindustrial.com and get a 3" or 4" tube or pipe cut to the proper length to support the center of the slab. They will have some scraps of steel plate you can put on top of the tube to give some additional support. Paint it black and wedge it in under the slab. Once you?re done you will be the only on to know it?s there.
For the voids we see on the edges I would not worry about them until you?re finishing the base and exterior. Grouting them with mortar now will not add strength. If you decide to fill them, just get a bag of mortar mix at HD or Lowes.

Mark

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Cut and laid the floor insulation (3 layers of 1" InsBlock 19). Also cut most of the floor bricks (pics in the next post due to 5-pic limit).

You can see my tile-saw setup, a plastic room masking-taped into the corner of my basement, although the floor is getting a little wet. The pump is in a bucket sitting on the concrete blocks in the back (left image) and the drain in the tray drains into a second bucket at the front (right image). You can also see that I put up a wall of boards behind the saw to keep crud from getting in the pump bucket, which I very quickly realized was a serious problem that would otherwise undermine the whole purpose of removing the pump from the tray to a separate reservoir.

The Insblock 19 was easy to cut with a jig-saw. I use a fine-toothed blade intended for metal instead of a toothy wood blade to minimize "chewing damage". Check out the overkill on the bio-hazard protection. I'll be using that again for the InsWool HP bulk loose fiber for the dome (I'm not using blankets like most people, probably a mistake, but I already bought it, so it's too late now).

The first and third layers of InsBlock have the same layout; the second layer is cut in a different layout so that no seams extend from the top to the bottom (or even past the top layer through the second layer for that matter).

You can see my floor brick cuts in the next post. I am a little confused about the floor bricks. In other people's photos, they appear truly curved. I have no idea how to achieve curved cuts. Are people just making straight cuts and then making micro cuts to "grind down" the subtle obtuse corners...or are other people making actual curved cuts?

[More pics in the next post.]

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Continuation of previous post.

[Alter ego]

Re: 36" in Seattle

...I have no idea how to achieve curved cuts...

I just cut my brick on the weekend and although they look curved in the photo they are simply 2 or 3 cuts on varoius angles. My oven is 1m dia and at that size a couple of straight cuts is close enough to a curve.

Paul

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I laid my soldiers on the floor,, no curved cuts were involved....

[jmhepworth]

Re: 36" in Seattle

I cut my floor to fit inside the soldiers. I just traced the pattern on the bricks with a pencil and then cut them on the wet saw. Some of them required two or three cuts to make the curve. But they were all straight cuts.

[papavino]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Ditto to what Joe said. I just made multiple passes with the wet saw to make my floor bricks curved. You don't want to make a truly curved cut with the wet saw. Only straight cuts.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Okay, that makes sense. I guess other people just shaved their bricks more precisely than I did on my first pass. I think I'll have to do that anyway, regardless of aesthetic concerns. They currently protrude past my interior perimeter a smidge which I suspect will push everything steadily out of whack. I'm going to have to trim 'em down before proceeding anyway, which should make them rounder in the process.

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Progress has been a little slow, owing to noncooperative weather. A surprisingly vociferous thunderstorm reduced my awning to a modern art piece made of poles, fabric and cord, the general disarray of which quietly invited the observer to reflect on the chaotic paradoxical inner conflict inherent between the ego and the id within each of us. In a panic about the InsBlock that was arranged on the hearth -- protected by not a small number of bricks thankfully -- I piled multiple layers of tarps and plastic over the hearth, weighted it down and hunkered down for the storm to pass...

...which dumped a genuine hailstorm before it was done.

Anyway, built a new awning, cut more bricks, and tried my first mortaring. You can see the guide I made to help cut tons of identical bricks for the first three courses (three vertical stretcher courses that replace soldiers, but serve a similar function of providing a vertical side wall before the dome starts curving in.

I didn't mortar anything "on site", but I mortared pairs of bricks together in prep for the first three courses. This should, theoretically, halve the required work at the hearth...

...assuming these pairs stick together. I'm not at all confident about my mortar. One thing that disturbed me was that after mortaring all these bricks together from a single batch, I didn't feel like the mortar in the pail was behaving any differently. It didn't feel like it was setting at all. I'll find out in the morning. My mix was the 6:4:2:1 ratio advocated by Lars.

One problem is that while there is much discussion of ingredient ratios, I haven't really found much guidance on water and mixed consistency. I'm not sure what to shoot for.

The final picture is 2.5 quarts of firebrick residue (probably a brick's worth at least!)...and I've got a long way to go.

[ThisOldGarageNJ]

Re: 36" in Seattle

mixed consistency

hey keb,, I didnt use the home brew, I used heat stop, But as far as the consistency,,, Go with peanut butter.... Worked for me.. Glad to see the weather hasnt stopped you

Good luck
Mark

[kebwi]

Re: 36" in Seattle

Maybe I mixed it too dry. I'm not sure it was peanut butter. I'm familiar with that trick, but I don't know. What is it with me and mixing cement too dry? I screwed up my concrete three times this way. I did make the mortar pretty pasty. At first I put too much water in, so I added more "stuff" and then was paranoid about adding water again, but maybe I should have.

On the plus side, I just looked at them (now a few hours after the job) and the seams haven't dried up, spread apart, cracked, or otherwise failed. So maybe tomorrow they'll turn out to be okay.

Next time I'll actually measure the water so I can figure out how much water to apply to a given mixture.

Peanut butter. Okay. I'll avoid a pedantic line of questions about brands, smooth vs. crunchy, and shelf vs. refrigerators.