Have a great invention to help with gardening? Are you the self-reliant type that prefers Building It Yourself vs. buying it? Share and discuss your ideas and projects with other members.
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November 26, 2009 | #19 |
Tomatovillian™
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: PNW
Posts: 4,743
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I would go with mortar. Figure that the unglazed clay roofing
tiles and standard brick are basically the same material, terra cotta, just in a different shape. Whatever works for brick will work to join the terra cotta roofing tiles, too. Trying mortar vs silicone is a good idea, of course, to find out for yourself which one works better with your materials. Mortar is more forgiving of rock/clay dust, etc on the surfaces to be joined than adhesive silicone caulk. If you can get good adhesion on those surfaces, though, 50-year silicone caulk is a very strong glue. Question: How are you going to drill the overflow holes for the reservoir? Those high speed steel masonry bits take forever to drill a 1" deep hole in concrete, for example. Your tiles are thinner than that, but a carbide-tipped or diamond bit is still going to be a considerable timesaver. Using a hammer drill speeds up the drilling but risks cracking the tiles. (I guess at 30 cents each you can risk one for a test.) Since the sides are probably more than one roofing tile long, you could perhaps put the overflow holes in the vertical seam between them (just put a piece of wood stick in the seam at the desired height above the bottom when joining the bottom row of side pieces together, then drill it out after the mortar or glue sets up). To understand mortars, one should first understand what portland cement is and its relation to concrete (people tend to use the terms interchangeably, but cement is only a component of concrete, mortars, grouts, etc): http://www.cement.org/basics/concretebasics_faqs.asp Mortar types: http://www.mc2-ice.com/support/estre...nry/mortar.htm It sounds like a fine self-watering container to me, that will not crack after a few years of UV exposure, etc.
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