Help!: best method for mosaics?

[mpajones]

Hi guys,

Having received such a warm welcome with my first post a couple of months ago I thought I'd come back to ask for some more sound advice for my next DIY job!

We have bought some Original Style mosaics (glass gold fleck, Sierra: Original Style - Glass Mosiac Gold Flecked Tiles) for a bathroom alcove where a sink / mirror will be, and I'm trying to work out the best way to fit them. The area is about 180cm high by 115cm wide, and I really want to get it right.

I've read the Original Style technical guide, which suggests the following :

"Glass: As glass is fully vitrified (impervious to water), it is important to choose a latex-based adhesive and grout to suit. A thin bed of adhesive should be used to prevent the adhesive coming through the joints."

My questions are:

1. Latex-based adhesive. Will Keraquick single part + latex addy do the job here?

2. With respect to "Thin bed" - the tiles are only about 4mm thick including the mesh. What's the best way to fit these and limit the number of (or preferably eliminate) the "adhesive worms". On my previous attempts to do mosaics, quite a few of the little blighters have wiggled through - especially when I tamp the mosaics down (with my home-made tamper) to get them flat. The grout will probably be a slightly different colour to the adhesive (white adhesive, jasmine grout), and I want these to look really sharp!

Cheers for your help
Matt

[nybor62]

adhesive,adeselix p10 by mapei you will get this at tile giant, mosaic trowel 2-3 mm, you can tamp mosaics with your grout pad thats the way i do it

[mpajones]

Brilliant - thanks for that.

What kind of pressure should I apply with the grout float?

[Scott]

You can push them quite hard as its a nice fat even surface. You need to feel them 'bed' in though. If the adhesive starts to ooze through the grout lines then thts a good time to stop Although with that size trowel you should be fine.

[mpajones]

Thanks - that sounds good.

I'm figuring that the tolerances here are really quite tight, so any surface variation will show through. So I'm going to skim the area to make sure it's really flat.

I'm ok at plastering so that bit's no problem, but I've read somewhere that I shouldn't "polish" the plaster, so as to ensure that is a sufficient key for the adhesive. Do you know what this means exactly? e.g. trowel only once, and not give it the second troweling? Or something else?

I was thinking as an alternative of getting the plaster really nice and flat, and then to rub it with course sandpaper when it's dry to provide a key? Would this work?

[Alan.P]

Yes, get your surface dead flat, always essential for mosaics, as you say, you can rough it slightly to key it.

[mpajones]

Thanks for the help guys. I really, really enjoy tiling, but don't do it often enough to know all this stuff!

If I'm happy with my work, I'll post a photo once it's done.

Thanks again,
Matt

[Scott]

We like pics

[nybor62]

great look forward to pics

[mpajones]

Right... an update on progress so far and some piccies:

1. Alcove on bathroom wall built and plastered. Blue wall is the area that will be covered in mosaics.

IMG_1465.JPG

2. On your advice, the alcove plastered as flat as I could get it, after getting a labourer to hack/scrape/sand off the remaning paint (for £20 - bargain!!). Surrounding plaster now painted.

IMG_1471.JPG

3. Lines marked out for mirror. Mosaics begin. Adesilix P10 is amazing and the first non-slip adhesive I've used that really is non-slip!! (thank you for that recommendation!)

IMG_1472.JPG

4. Rest of mosaics go up. Any slightly dodgy bits (of course there are none of those...) hidden behind where the basin will be.

IMG_1476.JPG

Pretty happy with progress so far. The combination of a mosaic trowel, the right adhesive, using the grout float to tamp them in, and general advice on surface preparation have all been spot on, so thank you guys!!

Next steps - grouting, mirror, basin and light fitting. Will post annother update once they're in!

Cheers
Matt