An Anticlimactic End To The Week

But now that I’ll be adhering concrete “stones” to the front, I needed not only to get rid of that black paint (the concrete stones needs to be adhered to bare concrete), but I also wanted to smooth out some rough areas on the concrete to make it smooth and flat so that the concrete stones would go on easier.

This was a very messy job, and I wasn’t able to work long before my first battery for my handheld grinder ran out of juice. So I swapped it out for a charged battery, and I got this far before the fully charged batter ran out of juice. And of course, my other battery hadn’t had nearly enough time to charge by this point, so I couldn’t go any further. This is why I have such a love/hate relationship (leaning more towards hate) with battery-operated power tools. I like corded tools, and I cannot lie. 😀

But I was determined to move forward. I didn’t quite get halfway with grinding the concrete, but I thought if I could at least get half of them attached, I’d be satisfied with my progress. So then I did the other prep work I needed to do to get started. Starting from the left side of the design and working to the right, I got the stones arranged so that once I got started, I wouldn’t have to be wasting time determining which one came next. And I also wanted to be able to anticipate ahead of time when I’d need to cut a stone to fit.

And of course, this was pretty easy to get these arranged because I had already worked out my map of the design. The stones with the white asterisks are the ones that need to be cut..

And then I used some scrap 1/2-inch plywood and cut that into strips to use as the spacers for my 1/2-inch mortar lines between the stones.

I got my tile saw all cleaned up, set up with plenty of water in the basin, and plugged in so it was ready to go when I got to those stones that needed to be cut. And with that, I was ready to go! So I got out the adhesive I had chosen, cut the inside plastic cap and the top off, put it in my caulk gun, and squeezed as hard as I could, but nothing came out.

I chose this specific construction adhesive after doing quite a bit of research comparing the pros and cons of using construction adhesive and mortar for a project like this. After comparing the two, I decided on construction adhesive. This particular one can be used on wet surfaces and even underwater, which is helpful since we’re having so many rainy days lately. But I chose this one specifically because it has the strongest initial hold of any construction adhesive available at a big box store. You can see on the label that it says it has a “0 second” hold. Most construction adhesives have a minimum of a 30-second hold, meaning that you have to hold the item in place for at least 30 seconds before it’ll really grab on. A “0 second” hold is what I wanted.

But no matter what I did, I couldn’t squeeze a single bit of adhesive out of that tube. So I thought maybe I had gotten an old tube that had dried up. I got a second one out and tried it. Same thing. I literally squeezed that trigger with two hands and with as much strength as I could muster, and it didn’t move the adhesive at all.

So I got online and searched “Gorilla Ultimate construction adhesive won’t come out of the tube”. And of course, Google’s AI told me to be sure that I had cut the tip of the tube off (duh!), and that I had punctured seal inside. Well, this adhesive doesn’t have a seal that you puncture like silicone caulk has. It has a plastic thing that you have to cut off with a utility knife. Of course, I had done that. This isn’t my first time using construction adhesive.

And then it said, “Gorilla Ultimate is notoriously difficult to use because it’s so thick. Try putting the tube of adhesive in a bowl of hot water for ten minutes before using.” So I tried that. Still…nothing. I’m telling you that no matter how hard I squeezed, it didn’t move the adhesive out of the tube even a fraction of an inch. I’ve used plenty of caulks and adhesives that were difficult to get out of the tube, but I’ve never had an experience like this where the adhesive didn’t budge at all when I used all of my strength to get it out.

So I gave up. I was exhausted and had a splitting headache by that time, so I decided to call it a day. I’ll try again this weekend with a different kind of adhesive. I’m just really disappointed that this one didn’t work out. Maybe I just happened to grab several tubes from a bad batch. Or maybe the box I got those tubes out of had been sitting on the shelf too long and it dried up. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll forgo the construction adhesive plan and go back to the mortar idea. But whatever I use, it has to have a very strong initial hold. So if you have any ideas, I’m all ears.

Anyway, it’s a disappointing end to the week. I sure was hoping to see at least some of the stones attached by the end of my workday yesterday, but sometimes our DIY timelines don’t work out the way we want them to.