Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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Like my brownhouse:
   tub glued
Sunday, August 16 2020
There was a lot of shooting today down at the bus turnaround, but I was too busy to do anything about it. It takes a special breed of selfishness to go into someone else's neighborhood and make that kind of noise for five hours straight, but, as the rise of Donald Trump has made clear, there's no limit to the heights a person with such selfishness can obtain.
I'd used wood filler to fill all the cracks in the platform that will be between the wall and the new bathtub, though until I glued the tub itself in place, certain crack-filling tasks would need to be deferred. I had one vaguely Utah-shaped tile (if the shape used to make Utah had been perfectly square before a corner was hacked out of it) that dipped well into the tight space between the tub and the west wall, and I'd decided not to put it in place, since waterproofing would have to go underneath part of it, and I hadn't had the adjacent parts of the platform finished enough for that. But now that I had all the cracks filled in that part of the platform, I could waterproof just that small area and then place that problematic tile (after first cutting out the Wyoming part and then mixing up a small batch of thinset).
Initially I'd thought I'd be doing the waterproofing with soldered copper flashing, and had bought a ten foot roll fifteen inches wide (it cost about $150). But then when I was at Lowes a week ago or so, I'd found a $60 bucket of a product called Mapelastic AquaDefence, which is a paint-on rubber barrier for just these sorts of applications. Even for someone who is good at soldering and cutting copper sheet to fit, it's a lot easier to just paint on a water barrier, so it looks like I'll have that copper flashing for some other fun project.
While I was installing and grouting that one Utah-shaped tile, I used some of the leftover thinset and grout to replace some of the tile that had come off the end of the low wall between the tub and the toilet during demolition.
At some point I took the dogs with me on a quick run to Herzogs just to get grey adhesive caulk (to be compatible with the grout lines when gluing in the tub). I also got some white adhesive caulk for use gluing the tub to the floor in the places where the caulk would not be seen. While in town, I went to J & K Liquor to buy a half gallon of gin and a litre of honey-colored Lunazul Reposado Tequila.
Back at the house, I used some spray foam to ensure that mice couldn't move between the south wall of the bathroom and the void beneath the tub platform. And once that was done, I realized I'd done all the prerequisites for permanently gluing the new tub in place. So I put a thick bead of caulk on the curving end walls and along the line where the curving base of the new tub would rest on the hidden tiles beneath the platform. I also put some beads of construction cement in places along the margin of the platform where it would be in contact with the tub, though I did this somewhat below its top surface so that I could put a bead of mostly epoxy wood filler there for a more-perfect transition from the plywood of the platform to the vinyl of the tub's edge. I'd also lightly sanded that vinyl in the places where glue or expoxy would be in contact with it. And then I slid the tub in place as best I could.
What followed after that was me working $15 worth of that semi-soft "mix with your hands" epoxy into crack between the platform and the tub. I'd done all I could to make the two fit together quite well, but there were places where the crack was as much as a quarter inch wide (though in those places, this was just in the topmost strata of several sheets of plywood).
When Gretchen came back from Woodstock, she brought me a pair of tofu tacos from the Woodstock Yum Yum (she and Powerful had eaten Impossible Burgers). Unfortunately, tofu tacos, though delicious, aren't much food. But I'd been eating leftover pizza all day and it was a nice change of flavor profile.
Later I made myself a scotch on the rocks and climbed into the new tub and took a bath, careful not to get as little water as possible on the patiently-shaped plywood platform to my right.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?200816

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