Brunnera table - feedback needed

15 years ago

I have finally finished the main part of the tabletop, but may have a problem. The glass is glued to mesh with Weldbond, then attached to Wediboard with thinset. The problem, I think, is that I spread a verrry thin layer of thinset, peanut butter consistency, on the Wedi, then pressed the glass-on-mesh into it. First I pressed with my hands, then I placed a board over it and tapped with a rubber mallet, but the thinset never oozed up past the mesh to 'grab' it. I let it dry overnight, and for the most part, it seems attached. But, some of the glass pieces seem to only be held in place with the glue (see photo).

I know I should've used thinset as the adhesive, but I thought I might be able to use the table outside if the thinset oozed up between each glass piece. I was planning to purchase two colors of grout, light and dark green, that I would seal with TileLab.

My question is, how does this mesh process work? Does it grab the mesh only, so that really you are relying on the glue to hold the tesserae in place? I read somewhere that the grout doesn't really hold pieces in place. Since I used Weldbond, will my pieces come loose if it rehydrates outside since some don't have any contact with the thinset? Should I have made the thinset thinner or doesn't it really ooze up anyway?

All experienced mesh-users, please reply! Hope this makes sense, I kinda went into this without thinking through all the details (too excited to get to work) Thanks for reading,

Anne

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Comments (4)

texaswild
15 years ago
Read this and during lunch just now, I thought and thought of what I w/do under your circumstances. It sounds like your thinset was too thin to ooze upwards. Can you lift the mesh off the thinset at this point? If you can, w/a little help from some tool to pry it loose, why not take the mesh off, lay a thicker layer of thinset and begin again. If you can, chip the first layer of thinset off b/f beginning again. IF it is not possible to take the mesh off, then, if I had this problem, I'd use a soupy thinset and grout the whole thing in the thinset, hoping it w/ooze downward, through the mesh and grab the first layer, and also adhere the tess. Hope this is clear.
texaswild
15 years ago
Took a nap and got up thinking about this problem. Try putting a thin putty knife under the whole thing and tapping w/a hammer to lift the thinset/mesh off and just begin again w/a thicker layer of thinset????? Is that possible?
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ans_garden
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks slowmedown for bothering with this! Today, most of it seems to be stuck down well. Just some areas seem wiggly, so I'll do what you said & grout with soupy thinset in those spots. Unfortunately, this project was meant to highlight the colored grout, so then I'll have to dig out enough thinset that I can grout over it, if that makes sense.

This plant is so cool - just silvery-green leaves with green veins, so I'm mainly using dark green grout. I'll use light green on some of the (younger) leaves, incorporating a 2nd grout color. I didn't think to use thinset as the adhesive to begin with because I've only used glue on previous projects (and why bother the brain with thinking :)) The table isn't really meant for outdoors, but I guess you really have to decide that before you start a project. Gosh, I am slow to learn...

But, I'm wondering how this mesh business works. In my case, the thinset almost seemed too dry to ooze through the mesh. If it only grabs the mesh and the back of the tesserae, is that a strong enough hold? Thinking ahead to a wall installation, do you want the thinset to ooze thru or is it strong enough just grabbing the mesh?
texaswild
15 years ago
Only one experience w/using mesh - and that was at the Hacienda where I used screen. Weldbond WILL rehydrate, so the thinset should attach the tess - not just the mesh.