A crude pipe made from post-hole soil and sodium silicate. The pipe has been air dried and the ends have been ground flat on aluminium oxide 'sandpaper'. The pipe is very hard and is ready for curing and then firing.

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Refractory mixing An easy in-bag mixing method for sodium silicate refractory mixes is described. It allows the mix to have a stiff consistency with low water content. The resulting ‘plasticine’ texture makes handling and molding easy. In my previous post about dense DIY refractories from sodium silicate, I have intentionallyRead More →

DIY rapid set cement used to make a strong fill for a welding tool

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This post is about how I use a simple DIY sodium silicate to make DIY rapid set cement (~1.5h) without having the mortar ‘go off’ before it can be placed in the mold. Introduction I use portland cement/sand mortar as a filler for many of my projects. It is; simple,Read More →