The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Mon Aug 26, 2019 1:22 pm**

Hi all - first post etc.

As topic says, I'm using blue slate for SWMBO's latest garden project.

Was wondering best way to do things..

SBR slurry on the back of the slate for laying on full bed

It's about 16 sqm area but was wondering if I should lay a section then point that section before moving on.. or lay the lot, then point it up.

If lay the lot, how long do I leave it laid before walking on it and pointing it? Saw somewhere saying 3-5 days, yeah?

Also saw on here some good results with that 'vdw 850 plus' resin stuff. Allowing for 10mm gaps max (give or take) Anyone willing guesstimate how many tubs I'd need for 16sqm

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Tonks

Posted: **Tue Aug 27, 2019 12:25 pm**

Tonks,

while it's always good to point what you lay on the day, for DIYers this can be something of a problem, as they won't be expecting to lay the tens or hundreds of square metres a professional team would expect to install in a typical day. So: for such situations, and on a relatively small job such as this, I'd be more than content to see it all jointed in one operation on completion.

If you are *very* careful, you can walk across freshly laid paving around 24 hrs after laying, but, it must be done with caution. Walk gingerly, keep away from edges and corners of the individual flags, aiming to step on the centre of any flag, and walk on as few as possible. After 3 days, you should be far safer, but, again, keep to the centres of flags until it's all jointed.

A single bucket of 850+ *should* give you around 12mÂ² of coverage, but I have seen it stretched to 16-18mÂ² on a few jobs. It's all down to joint width and depth, of course. If I were doing this, I'd invest in two buckets, make sure the joints are raked out prior to jointing to give as much depth as possible, and accept that I'm likely to throw away half a bucket of not inexpensive mortar.

I have seen children of DIYers (and of contractors) comandeer surplus resin mortar and use it with moulds to make all sorts of weird and wonderful "models". I've seen rabbits (I think that was a jelly mould), no end of starfish, seahorses and crescent moons made using beach toys, and quite a few cubes, spheres and pyramids....now there's an idea for a page on the new website: things to do with leftover resin mortar!

The Brew Cabin

Crazy paving slate grouting question