FreeShip- Crushed Glass Powder, Recycled, 70 Mesh- (Prompt rebate on orders with 3 or more FreeShip items!)

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PROMPT REBATE ON ORDERS WITH 3 OR MORE “FreeShip” ITEMS! WANT TO KNOW YOUR TOTAL REBATE BEFORE PURCHASE? CONTACT US!
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https://www.etsy.com/shop/NorthernWestStuff?ref=hdr_shop_menu&search_query=crushed+glass

Not all sizes are pictured.

Go directly to the 2nd section down for a description of this material. This can be used as a resin additive\filler, a concrete additive, a gypsum cement additive (especially in the case of duracal), a sand blasting medium, and a "weight" additive material for dolls and other items (this is heavier than many other non-metallic weight additives but steel shot is the ultimate heavy filler- please note that this acts totally different than micro glass beads (or steel shot) which are also used for adding weight: glass beads are "squishier" because they're round- they slide past each other- this material does not).

As a concrete additive, no matter which type of cement(s) you use in your concrete mix, you still need to add an aggregate. 'Regular' concrete uses 2 aggregate sizes, ordinary cheap sand and gravel (of differing sizes depending on the usage of the concrete. 'Regular' Mortar is like regular concrete, it uses portland cement, but the aggregate is only sand. It also has an additive, lime, to make it more plastic.
There are many different aggretate materials used with high performance concrete. They can be the same aggregates used for regular concrete. The countertop, decorative flooring industry uses a great variety of aggregates, some very exotic, especially when the surface is ground and polished with diamond, when exposes the internal aggregates used.
I'm going to list just a few in this section, differing primarily by color; white, dark, and medium.
There are other materials in my shop that could also be used as aggregates. They just need to be hard and of the mesh size you desire your aggregate to have. But please keep in mind that if an "aggregate" becomes too fine, it will not act as an aggregate, but as a replacement for cement that will be of greater or lesser reactivity with the cement. Fine clays like metakaolin react chemically with the cement and alter its properties in a positive way (making a high performance concrete). Other very fine particle sized materials of lesser reactivity may actually weaken the concrete.
Some of the High Performance Concretes as defined by the standard terms 'concrete' and 'mortar' would actually be classified as 'mortars' because of the lack of a gravel size aggregate. A traditional 'gravel' is considered anything from a "pea gravel" (small pebbles about the size of peas) on up to 1/2" or larger. By that definition I don't carry a "gravel". You can find many gravels at a masonry/building supply store.
Aggregates that I do carry would be classified as "sand" (either 'fine' sand, about 100 to 35 mesh, or 'coarse' sand with larger particles above 35 mesh). They are listed in scattered locations, so to find them just do a store search for "sand". Others are not necessarily labeled 'sand' and would be used for their darker or lighter colors: Granular Magnetite, Fused Silica, Kyanite, and Crushed Glass.
The 'Sands' I carry are Coarse Silica Sand (what you would find if you went to a home depot), a 70 mesh Silica Sand, Olivine sand, and just a sand "sand", ordinary brown sand of mixed particle size that's used for standard mortar and concrete, sometimes called River Sand (found in several grades at a home depot or masonry/building supply).
There are some other finer materials I have that are used as concrete colorants, most often Red or Black Iron Oxide because they are relatively inexpensive (Magnetite is actually a form of black iron oxide). Any other powdered pigment would work as a colorant but most would be cost prohibitive. BlueConcrete.com has a full line of colorants ( http://www.blueconcrete.com/color-pigments/ ). Colorants are neither aggregates or reactives (with some exceptions).
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Crushed glass will impart some translucency to the mix depending on how much you can squeeze in and what color the other components of you mix are. Glass beads are another possibility but because they're basically little spheres you won't get the mechanical, angular cohesion that rough shaped particles provide. And glass beads cost way way more than crushed glass. Crushed glass when bought by the bag is fairly cost competitive if you're considering something more exotic than river sand. I'm not sure how it compares with coarse silica sand, probably it's more expensive. One other thing about crushed glass is it cntains no crystalline silica which most all of the aggregates that have the word "silica" in them do (the exception is fused silica). Very fine crystalline silica dust that becomes airborne is what causes silicosis. But you should always wear a dust mask when doing anything that creates fine airborne dust.
The Wiki article on glass recycling is here and mentions its use in concrete:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling
"The use of the recycled glass as aggregate in concrete has become popular in modern times, with large scale research being carried out at Columbia University in New York. This greatly enhances the aesthetic appeal of the concrete. Recent research findings have shown that concrete made with recycled glass aggregates have shown better long term strength and better thermal insulation due to its better thermal properties of the glass aggregates."
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This is one of a series of listings I'm making for materials that can be used to enhance concrete and other cementitious mixes. I decided I wanted to migrate away from using polymers like epoxy, urethane, polyester, and other 'resins' for making castings. One reason was the high cost of resins and another was nuisance/safety factor of using them and inevitably the organic solvents you have to use to clean up drips and spills.
Over the years I'd already used gypsum cements as casting materials, but their physical properties (when cured) weren't always to my liking. Their surfaces are kind of 'dead' unless you add a coating, and they are brittle (low tensile strength). I'd also tried using concrete/mortar mixtures and was even more unhappy with their cured properties.
The properties I wanted from a casting material were: high hardness and tensile strength (above any existing cement), whiteness (so I could add pigment to make it any color I wanted), and a degree of translucency (about like marble). I started researching and discovered some things that led me to believe I could formulate my own casting material. Here are some of those things:
New gypsum cements that I wasn't familiar with, refractory cements I'd forgotten about, a casting system already formulated that was close to what I wanted: Forton MG, the fact that you can use elements of Forton outside the Forton MG system, new concrete types I wasn't familiar with, new concrete additives I wasn't familiar with, the concrete countertop industry, pozzolanic materials I wasn't familiar with.

I was aiming for a very specific results (some translucency, etc) and because the ingredients chosen for the particular results you're after can be very different from mine, it's impractical to go into any more detail because the interactions between ingredients are just too complex. If what you're trying to do varies by even a little from what I was trying to do, it's too difficult to predict what will work and what won't. I spent 6 months making hundreds of test mixes. I almost finished, but something else intervened and I had to put the project on hold. I haven't done anything further with this project for 5 or 6 months. What I want to do is leave you with the links I've provided to information on particular materials, so you'll have a handy means of doing the research into whichever material I'm listing yourself. And there is a wealth of sources about these materials on the internet above and beyond what I'm citing. (Please note that I have other materials in my shop which could fit into this 'cementitious mixes' category. To locate them do a shop search on "Colloidal", "Thixo", "Cab-o-sil", "Cement", "Kaolin", and "Calcium": Calcium Chloride is a cement accelerator and Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate (raw gypsum) is a pozzolan).-

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Reviews

Reviews (1)

Average:

Jul 26, 2021

Punctual and quality material as usual!

Anthony