Talk:Mortar (masonry)
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[edit] Slime is correct
In my original entry I used the word "slime" as one of the types of mortar used by the Babelonians to lay bricks. This was later changed to "lime" by the well intentioned 88.114.102.66. However, I have now changed it back to "slime" according to my source.
Genesis 11:3 : And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter.
According to Wiktionary, slime is soft moist earth or clay, having an adhesive quality. It may have been a bitumen product.Tvbanfield (talk) 19:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Need source
Need source for volcanic ash "originally discovered and dug in Italy" for internal consistency. See article section on Ancient mortars.[1]Tvbanfield (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Fix
Perhaps correct this sentence: 'The earliest known use of lime mortar dates to about 4000 BC in Ancient Egypt.
[Concrete Construcyion Manual, pg 9. Friedbert Kind-Barkauskas] Finds in Eastern Turkey dating from about 12,000 BC represent the oldest known use of lime mortar as a building material. Then about 6000 years later lime was used as a binder in the mortar in the construction clay brick structures in the Jericho culture in Palestina. Aming the remains of old buildings dating from about 5500 BC excavated near Lepenski Vir in the Carpathian Mountains are ground floor slabs with a conrete-like composition made up of fired lime, sand and loam. The use of lime mortar in important religious buildings has been proved in Ancient Egypt, Troy and Pergamum. This method of building is mentioned several times in the Old Testament, which was written around 1200 BC.
Yes, I think this should be corrected. Was your reference about Lime mortar or lime concrete? I have just added a section on Ancient Mortar referencing a concrete floor of 7000 BC. I could not check out your reference. If you think it is correct, feel free to modify this section accordingly.Tvbanfield (talk) 21:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
mortar holds the bricks of the world together my brothers...
Quote: This kind of lime mortar, known as non-hydraulic, dries very slowly by a reaction with the oxygen in air. A very thick wall made of it may take centuries to dry out completely.
Shouldn't this read carbon dioxide (calcium hydroxide to calcium carbonate) ?
yes it should Kpeyn 11:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Purpose
If mortar's purpose is to stick the bricks together, why isnt glue used?--Light current 03:24, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- Most glues are not weatherproof for centuries. And mortar is also a very cheap material compared to glue. Finally, the mortar sets to be as hard as the bricks it joins together, so the combined wall (bricks and mortar) is strong enough to hold the building up. Notinasnaid 07:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
No. My point is that the purpose of mortar is not to stick the bricks together. To see this, take a side swipe at the top brick in a wall with a club hammer. (or kick it) --Light current 08:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- If this is a comment on the article, I don't see the word "stick" being used. I see "bind", which is not the same thing at all. Notinasnaid 08:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
What the diff? I suppose we will have to take what a publihed article like [2] says. Unfortunately, they dont mention one of its primary functions which is to spread the load evenly between the bricks. For instance I dont think you could build a dry stone wall very high without it becoming unstable. Similarly, if you used bricks just stuck together with an adhesive, they would not be very stable.--Light current 08:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
- Well, you can bind a bundle of sticks with string; the resulting bundle may be immensely strong. But the string doesn't stick them together. I agree that the fact that the mortar becomes an integral supporting part of the structure is important enough to mention. Notinasnaid 08:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
The purpose of mortar is to seet the stone ontop of the other, to act as a weight against the lower stone, and to act as an absorption of the upperstone. In other words it is the meat between the buns. It doesn't really "bind" per se, but rather is like an agent producing a synthethic foundation while simultenously bridging the gap between the upper stone and the lower stone, which prevents the lower stone from cracking due to all the weight, while keeping additional stones in balance. If you were to merely build without mortar, your lower stones would crack more easily due to the pressure, wheras the upper stones would be more likely to be less balanced. Chado2423 06:11, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
- Chado has it right. The primary purpose of the mortar is to spread the load of the above weight evenly across the entire surface of the stone below. Michel Bouttier explains in his book "Cathedrales, Comment elles sont construites," (Cathedrals, how they are built, translated from the French) that the mortar does not serve as a glue, but as a supple layer capable of absorbing the irregularities due to the cut of the stones. He has determined (for a limestone block from a specific quarry in France) that if you stacked stones of one meter on each side on top of each other without mortar, and if the irregularities are such that only 1/100 th of the mating surfaces would be in contact, the lower stones would break after reaching a height of 4.5 meters. But if mortar is applied to fill in all the gaps so that the weight is spread evenly across the entire surface, instead of just on many points that would break, the stones could theoretcally be stacked to 450 meters without any cracking.Tvbanfield (talk) 16:21, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] US portland cement grades
I have deleted this bit. It is an inappropriate level of detail for what is a brief summary, and should be in the portland cement article. However, the grades given are completely different to those mentioned in the portland cement article, which would need to be explained. It is also inappropriate to mention the cement grades of just one country: there are dozens of national standards out there.--Stonemad GB 09:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
