Burning 100806

Bill moved the chiminea back in place, and I burned some liquidambar balls tonight to "baptize" it again. Works great, and I'm really happy with the way this project turned out!

FINISHED 100805

WooHoo!!

Was able to re-shape the top edge so the whole thing's got a fairly consistent "roll".  Adding to the existing shape seemed to work best when the grout was really wet.  Came near to ruining it a time or two, but (barring disaster) it's done!  Tomorrow I'll ask Bill to put the chiminea back in place, and I can put this project in the books!

Grouting 100804

I used two scoops of grout for this first section.  The mix was a little dry, which makes it harder to work with, but I think there's less shrinkage.

After three more scoops, I've reached the halfway point!

Six scoops just about finished the job.  However, as I was doing the left side, I finally figured out the technique for getting the slightly rounded shape I wanted on the line between the top edge and the facing tiles.  So tomorrow I want to try to reshape that line on the right side.

Mortaring 100804

Mortaring FINISHED!

I checked the SpeedSet website, and I can grout in 2 hours, which will be 1:00 (about the time the sun will be off of the tiles.)  Hopefully the temperature doesn't spike.....

Mortaring 100803

Mortared strips around both sides of the facing today, and then calculated that I need to do 16 more (3 strips on the right and 1 on the left.)  These are all in the back corners where I'll have to stand on my head to do them, so I'll be REALLY glad to finish them.  Besides, after I mortar them, all I'll have left to do is grout!

Re-Mortaring 100802

Got back to where I should have been yesterday at this time....set 14 strips (56 tiles total)----12 on the left & 2 on the right.  The good news is the patterns are all lined up this time!

Mortaring 100801

What's wrong with this picture?

Hubris.  I was so pleased that I had the mortaring process down that I didn't check my patterns.  As I started to remove the tape, I realized that the tiles I added today were lined up to each other, but NOT to the tiles I set yesterday----ARGHHHH!  So I had to remove every tile, then clean mortar off all the tiles and the hearth.  Then I had to start over sorting tiles and re-taping them.  Hopefully I'll be ready to start again tomorrow.....