Mosaic Adhesive...film or groutless?

Streuter Technologies offers several different adhesive solutions for mosaic artists. Each one was developed for a specific use. So how do you know which one you should use? This post will hopefully help you to answer that question, specifically for No Days Mosaic Adhesive film vs. No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive.

How do you decide which adhesive to use?

No Days Mosaic Adhesive Film is dry-to-the-touch and comes in rolls of thin, film sheets that can be cut to size. It comes in "clear," which has a yellowish tint to it.
No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive is a thick heat activated colored adhesive sheet designed not only to adhere tiles to a variety of substrates but also to fill in your grout lines between tiles during heating. It comes in "clear," pewter & black.

To help illustrate the questions to consider, I'll be using this glass on glass mosaic held together with No Days Mosaic Adhesive Film:

Various textured stained glass bits on plate glass.

It's a perfect example, because it was built with various textures of stained glass on a perfectly flat plate glass substrate with one sheet of adhesive film. By looking at the backside, you can see the areas of the glass that have adhered to the substrate as well as the areas that are not touching the substrate. ("Substrate" = the base you're building on.)

Looking through the flat glass, you can see where the adhesive is sticking (transparent) and where it's not.

The picture above illustrates what mosaics built with No Days Adhesive Film look like underneath the tiles. The adhesive has turned transparent where it is holding onto the glass (bonded) after heat setting the pieces in place. Now imagine that these glass pieces are on mdf, hardibacker, cement, wedi or other substrate. The surface area of the bond is enough to hold the pieces in place. The piece can be grouted and finished with no fear of pieces popping off (assuming that the mosaic was heat set properly.)

For tiles that have more texture and depth on the backside, No Days Groutless fills in
the gaps to provide more surface area for a secure bond.

 If, however, you are using tiles like the ones above, you may opt to use No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive. This gorgeous dichroic coated, ceramic tile from Coatings by Sandberg has a more textured back surface. That means that if you were using the mosaic adhesive film (which is thinner), that the adhesive wouldn't be as strong because the surface area for the adhesive to grab onto is reduced. But, if you're using the No Days Groutless (thicker), then there's no worry that the adhesive is grabbing onto the tile. The tile in the foreground is a tile that was adhered on wedi board with Groutless in pewter, then reheated and pulled off. You can see where the adhesive grabbed onto the tile.

To grout or not to grout?

The Groutless was developed for a teacher who wanted to skip the grouting process with her elementary school students because, well...it's messy! It's up to you whether or not you want to grout after the tiles are in place. The sunflower piece above has been adhered with pewter on wedi board. I am going to grout this piece, but used the Groutless Mosaic Adhesive because the ceramic tiles I used needed a little more adhesive to grab onto them. 

Glass on glass mosaic using No Days Groutless in black

By the way, you can use the No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive for glass on glass mosaics, and I've got some great secrets to share. But...that's gonna have to wait for another post!

Got any questions for me? Leave a comment so I can answer them :)