Progress, not perfection. Particularly with thinset mortar…
The house is a few steps closer today, I got the stainless steel pieces for the bathroom floor partially ready. Still have a bit of work to do before we’re ready for the final step: Concrete.
It’s shaping up quite well, I’m really pleased with the results so far. It’s the first time I’ve sculpted metal in any way for a while, glad to see I haven’t lost my touch.
I’ve got them cut and bent to the correct shapes now, just need to do a bit of trimming on the bottom edge with my band-saw to level them out. Then I sand the tops to a nice finish with a 4″ grinder and sanding wheel, then finally use some epoxy putty to secure them for the pour.
I may also get some more thinset to seal up the bottoms. This would be good for the slab, for crack control. The steel is acting as a divider as well as an asthetic piece, so any cracking is limited. But if any concrete manages to bridge the sections by going under the divider, it’s quite possible for a crack to go right through. I thought of using silicone, but that might not be as compatible. So better safe than sorry, don’t want to do this again anytime soon.
I’ve also made sure that the dividers are just slightly below the intended finished surface level on top, so we don’t get a hotfoot from the warmfloor coil. No idea if that’s a potential issue, but it’s easy enough to avoid. It also makes it easier to seal it with an epoxy or such, which I’m planning to do. When we do the pour, my concrete guy will edge it appropriately, so it doesn’t get buried. It’s only about 1/16″, so surface tension alone should do it.
Hopefully I’ll finish it entirely next weekend. So much is hung up on this being finished, we’ll have a ton of progress once this is out of the way, and have a functional bathroom, always a plus for moving back in…
