John's Page

I've already got some Type I, sand, plasticizer and fibers. Now I'm looking for pozzolans or admix like Fritz-Pak to strengthen, reduce air & increase hardness/water resistance. Any ideas?

 

doing this like 3tys part time, took thetraining cource with rob at concrete countertops canada 3yrs ago.  ive done a coupple of nice buddy rhodes style pieces and a lot of cast in place style since then mostly on outdoor kitchens.  workin on my kitchen right now with some left over buddy baggs i had from 2 yrs ago. had a coupple of bags go bad on me though.  ruined a nice island top yesterday.  wish they had put an expiry date on them, they were stored with some bags of elete crete and jewel stone that are still good, so carefull not to keep to mutch stock.  last time i slurried these large voids i used like 30% fine quarts sand from merkely 70% white port 50-50 water binder and they turned out great after wet polishing, but ive just bought some ultresealz frome blue and trying to make it even better.  Jon Schuler told me to try like 55% ultra sealz 45% port 25%binder 75% water but it seams to consolidate too mutch to fill those large voids, also tried it at 25% ultra and 75% port but it had the same effect, especally on the hard to fill edges and corners.  any sugestions? 

nice work brother...just noticed your from ottawa... wanna go for a beer sometime on me...

hey John, Checked out your page, some nice projects ! I have to add pictures to my page still, never seem to get good photos though .

thanks for the tip Bro, I will stay on So Cal for now!! :) Will see you in Canada some day though. I may need to put skis on the RV, or tow it with the Jeep.

Ok man so this is an 80 lb mix so the formula you are going too use is as follows
take the square footage of the moud excluding the verticle surface.
so for 1 1/2" thickness take the square footage and multiply it by .27 this will give you how many 80 pound mixes you will need and you will take that number and multiply it by these numbers.

rock 25 pounds
sand 17.5 ponds # 20
sand 17.5 pounds # 30
cement 16.4 pounds
Metakaolin 3.6 pounds
water 7 pounds for grey, and 7.3 pound for white
I'm not sure what super plastisizer you use so I cant tell you the dosing rate. You may already have a percentage that you use based on cement wieght in your mix.
So take out about 1/3 of the mix and add fiber to the remaining mix. take the face coat mix and pour it in your mould and vibrate, you may want to take out a little extra just to make sure that you have enough to finish the face and then you can mix the remaining back in with the fiber back coat. Take the remaining back coat mix out of the mixer. run yor finger around the perimeter of the mould to erase the cast line that will form from the vibration. Build a small dam around small dm around the perimeter of the mould at all faces. Add the fiber mix to the center then kick the vibtator back on. Fill the remaining portions of the mould until its level. The fiber mix will be much dryer and stiffer so kind of move your hands across it during vibration too help creem it out and flatten it. Also make sure you finger stab all faces so you can work the casting line out ouf the face. Thats it man
Cheers

The aggs we use dry out fast in our bins with drain holes drilled in it. Our sands are super dirty and we rinse several times weighing the before and after and guessing a bit. Any ideas on how to dry the sand?

Are you getting some sand with the 3/16th Agg or is it straight agg? Is it easier to clean the aggs after crushing in the mixer? That is how we are doing it right now and it works quite well.