stained glass in what color concrete?

[dave schoeppner]

i have a sink mold ready to pour, with stained glass in the bottom of the mold. just wanted some opinions on if it would look good using a dark concrete mix. right now i have some quikrete countertop mix but wasn't sure if it would be worth the money to get a white mix instead. if anyone has any pics or opinions i would appreciate the input. thanks - dave

[Robert Winckler]

Haven't tried stained glass but I would lean toward using white. Do you have a pic of the glass in the mold?

[dave schoeppner]

here are some pics of the 2 piece mold with the stain glass individually stuck to the mold. first pic is countertop mold and sink plug. second pic is the cap to wet pour over the sink plug. the third is the 2 pieces put together. any suggestions?
- dave

[jschuler]

Dave, what did you use to stick the glass to the mold?

[dave schoeppner]

spray adhesive, but i sprayed each piece individually.

jschuler said:

Dave, what did you use to stick the glass to the mold?

[jschuler]

You may want to think about hand packing this sink, not using the hat mold technique. Unless you are not vibing???

with a hand pack, you can work it inbetween the glass pieces...work slow and make sure you push and pinch into and around each piece of glass. THen just place and mold the concrete.

We have done exactly what you are doing and had the pieces "pop" while vibrating to get the mix poured down the sink hat. We not hand place these kind of looks, I personally perfer it now. We used to hat mold all of our integral sinks, not anymore.

[dave schoeppner]

so hand place the whole sink? at what consistency do i mix? and if i pack it by hand will there be alot of voids without vibrating?

jschuler said:

You may want to think about hand packing this sink, not using the hat mold technique. Unless you are not vibing???

with a hand pack, you can work it inbetween the glass pieces...work slow and make sure you push and pinch into and around each piece of glass. THen just place and mold the concrete.

We have done exactly what you are doing and had the pieces "pop" while vibrating to get the mix poured down the sink hat. We not hand place these kind of looks, I personally perfer it now. We used to hat mold all of our integral sinks, not anymore.

[jschuler]

the consistency would be similar to Play Doh, but more like sticky Play Doh, for this type of hand pack.

You won't get voids if you work the material. The only reason guys get the void look with hand pack, is they are trying to get it. If you work the material and avoid voids, they really won't appear.

This is sort of what we do, for these looks. We hand pack the surface area, then we vib...just to ensure lack of voids in the surface. We then work the material up the flat surfaces of the sink....vib again...just a little to ensure the bottom of the sink is void free. Then we pack the vertical sides.....and finish building up the everything.

If you feel you really need the hat mold.....hand pack everything first. Then, let it set up just a little.....wet out your remaining material with plasticizer....place the hat mold...and fill. This would be similar to how we do our "hand placed" gfrc mixes.

[Dave Solursh]

Hey Dave, I did a sink similar to this one (Well same idea with the glass) a few years back, I will post a pic. I used a method similar to Jon's hand pack for this one. I would seriously skip the hat if I could, just more stuff to get in the way and trip over when I am furiously running around the shop. But if you don't have the mix to do this I guess you have to wet cast. I wanted some voids, as I used 3 different blues for the sink and wanted the fill to visually bring them together a bit. I think I had a bit too much SuperP in my blue as it kept wanting to run away down the verticals of the sink, so I had to babysit and keep putting it back where I wanted it until it stiffened up and stayed where I wanted it. Only thing I did differently was router out areas where glass was placed in the melamine, so that I could expose as much as possible, with out grinding into the rest of the surface, and showing too much sand. I think you have flatter glass than I had, I used beach glass. If the glass isn't perfectly flat, then you might have some voids if around the glass pieces if paste doesn't flow under some of the glass, but it fills in fine after.

Can't wait to see it.

[dave schoeppner]

i imagine i will skip the hat mold and pack it all. i have some quikrete countertop mix, would you cover the face of everything then mix in some fibers.? thanks alot - dave

jschuler said:

the consistency would be similar to Play Doh, but more like sticky Play Doh, for this type of hand pack.

You won't get voids if you work the material. The only reason guys get the void look with hand pack, is they are trying to get it. If you work the material and avoid voids, they really won't appear.

This is sort of what we do, for these looks. We hand pack the surface area, then we vib...just to ensure lack of voids in the surface. We then work the material up the flat surfaces of the sink....vib again...just a little to ensure the bottom of the sink is void free. Then we pack the vertical sides.....and finish building up the everything.

If you feel you really need the hat mold.....hand pack everything first. Then, let it set up just a little.....wet out your remaining material with plasticizer....place the hat mold...and fill. This would be similar to how we do our "hand placed" gfrc mixes.

[dave schoeppner]

thanks for the advice. the sink looks great! was it difficult to get the multicolor?

Dave Solursh said:

Hey Dave, I did a sink similar to this one (Well same idea with the glass) a few years back, I will post a pic. I used a method similar to Jon's hand pack for this one. I would seriously skip the hat if I could, just more stuff to get in the way and trip over when I am furiously running around the shop. But if you don't have the mix to do this I guess you have to wet cast. I wanted some voids, as I used 3 different blues for the sink and wanted the fill to visually bring them together a bit. I think I had a bit too much SuperP in my blue as it kept wanting to run away down the verticals of the sink, so I had to babysit and keep putting it back where I wanted it until it stiffened up and stayed where I wanted it. Only thing I did differently was router out areas where glass was placed in the melamine, so that I could expose as much as possible, with out grinding into the rest of the surface, and showing too much sand. I think you have flatter glass than I had, I used beach glass. If the glass isn't perfectly flat, then you might have some voids if around the glass pieces if paste doesn't flow under some of the glass, but it fills in fine after.

Can't wait to see it.

[Paul Lundy]

I think that Quickrete has some super plastzzz in it so I would try a sample first see how it hand packs.
I like Buddy Rhodes' mix, have you ever tried it?

[Dave Solursh]

I weighed out everything before water touched any part of the mix, and made 4 different batches, one for each colour. I did counter first as Jon mentioned, some of the mix away from sink so when vibing it would get all over sink. Then started working my way up the sink. It is fun times trying to coordinate timing, add some qwikx to the mix and you are really racing. I like to use some fibers in my face coat, maybe as small as 50-70g/cuft, (funny how i mix metric with imp.) but it helps with consistency and holding together to build up vertical. It doesn't really show, and I like to mix 15m PVA with some small Glass HD, not the big yellow ones! Then in the back coat I put in something like 250-300g/CuFt. Just add to batch left in mixer once you pull out enough for face coat. (Usually there are many mixers, or buckets with paddle mixers going for something like this)

As for Quickcrete, I have never used, I generally make up my own mixes, so you have to ask some others about this.