Refrax to Water Ratio

[RCANCILLA]

I hope someone can answer my quesiton. It's driving me crazy. I have read several posts whrere people talk about how fast their refrax motar sets and how hard it gets, etc.

When I apply it, it dries quickly enough, but after it dries, (24 hrs later) it brushes off and truns to a sandy grit and blows away in the wind.

I'm wondering if I'm adding too much water or not enough. Pehaps it is something else. I'm using the Refrax from Forno.

Can someone help here?

[james]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

It is possible that you are using too much water. Refrax should be hydrated, but not runny. You should be able to trowel it in place and not have it ooze or slide away. Think mayonnaise, but fully hydrated, so there are no dry parts and no lumps. It should be a nice, smooth textured mixture.

A couple of other tips:

You cannot re-hydrate Refrax (or any calcium aluminate based mortar). You have to get the consistency right, and then use all of it.

Make sure that the pieces you are mortaring together are wet, otherwise they will suck the water out of your mortar.

Let me know if this helps. I use Refrax all the time, and it is a great high heat mortar.
James

[RCANCILLA]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

James,


You know what. You're right. I made it pretty runny. I'll try again. Thank goodness I ordered extra.

I have another question regarding refrax. Should I use it instead as mortar where I have concrete block butting up against the vent? I would assume that would be the correct thing to do because of the heat.

Are you familiar with Perlite? I purchased it instead of Vermiculite because I coluldn't find any where I live.

Thanks for the advice!

[james]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

Yes, you should use Refrax on all of the Premio pieces. They're made for each other. :-)

Perlite will work great. It has very similar thermal characteristics to vermiculite.

Keep it going!
James

[Ken524]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

RCANCILLA,

We'd love to see some pictures of your Premio construction!

[RCANCILLA]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

Ken,

Here are some pictures. Nothing unique here, but I have never had more fun with a project in my life.

Is your avatar a picture of your oven? If so, are there pictures on this forum showing the construction of your roof?

[Ken524]

Re: Refrax to Water Ratio

Nice work! Thanks for posting. The pictures confirm what I was suspecting... If I ever have to move and build another pizza oven, it'll be an FB kit

Is your avatar a picture of your oven? If so, are there pictures on this forum showing the construction of your roof?

Yep! If you click the link below that says "Enclosure Thread", you can follow my enclosure build including the roof. Take my pictures and techniques with a grain of salt. I'm not an experienced framer or roofer. I bought the materials, looked at pictures and made it up as I went along. So far it's withstood 70mph winds and driving rain so I think it's ok!