Q & A ~ Heating No Days Mosaic Mesh in the Oven

Assorted tiles on No Days Mosaic Mesh:
thick dichroic on ceramic tiles, clay tile, thick glass tile,
smalti & fused glass

No Days Mosaic Mesh is a fiberglass mesh with No Days Mosaic Adhesive embedded in it. So, instead of using white glue (which can be messy) or thinset or mortar (which can be messy and take time to mix up in small batches), you can place your tiles on top of the mesh and heat set them in place before final installation with a cement product.

The No Days Mosaic Adhesive will stick to everything but silicone. So, it comes packaged with a silicone coated paper to be used as a release liner. If you don't heat set your tiles on the mesh on top of the silicone release liner, then the mesh will stick to whatever surface is lying under it!
 

Assorted tiles on No Days Mosaic Mesh:
glass tiles, sea shell & smalti

 Once your tiles are in place, you can use a standard heat gun, curing station, embossing heat tool, oven, electric skillet, or toaster oven to heat the adhesive to activate it. Using an oven can be a huge time saver, because it frees up your hands to continue working on more sections of the mosaic instead of holding a heat gun.  The No Days Adhesive is non-toxic and will not contaminate your oven when used properly.

Assorted tiles on No Days Mosaic Mesh:
thick and thin glass tile,  stone & dichroic glass

To use an oven, find a cookie sheet and line it with the release liner from the NO Days Mosaic Mesh packaging. The liner should be slightly larger than the mesh mosaic you are building. Then, lay down a section of No Days Mosaic Mesh and cover it with your tiles. When you're ready to heat set the adhesive, put the cookie sheet in the oven and set the oven to 180º-200ºF (80º-90ºC). Leave your mosaic in the oven for approximately 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove the cookie sheet and use tweezers or a skewer to move pieces into place if they are not exactly where they should be. You will have about a minute to move your tiles around before the adhesive begins to cool and cure. If you need more time, then reheat the mosaic. (NOTE: If you continue to move the tiles when the adhesive begins to cool and cure, then your bond will become weak. Reheat the pieces to reactivate the adhesive if you need more time.)

If you haven't tried using No Days Mosaic Mesh, it's recommended to try building a small section (~6" or 12") to get used to the way it works. After you heat set the piece and pull it out of the oven,  let it cool down.  Shake the mesh a bit and if the pieces are falling off, then the try to heat again.

 

Some things to keep in mind: 

• Thicker tiles can take a bit longer to heat. Experiment to see how long you need to heat your tiles. The adhesive activates at 160ºF (70ºC), which is too hot to touch. You should not be able to comfortably touch tiles that are hot enough to activate the adhesive. 
• No Days Adhesives do not stick to silicon. If your tiles had any kind of silicon adhesive covering the back of them, they will not stick to the mesh because our adhesive won't stick to silicon. 
• If you have any problems, please contact info@streuter.com so we can help you sort them out!

Mosaic Artist Spotlight ~ Allan Punto of Arto Punto

Allan Punto of Arto Punto shared some photos from an installation in London, UK.
He built the mosaic on No Days Mosaic Mesh before transporting to the installation site for permanent adhesive using mortar.

8' x 2' mosaic created by Allan Punto of Arto Punto
on No Days Mosaic Mesh

"Here is a photo of the installed mosaic in London that I prepared using No Days Mosaic Mesh. The size is 8 feet by 2 feet and the tiles are Winckelman porcelain and Sicis glass. I used Rocatex Rapid Set adhesive and Grout."

Allan built the mosaic on No Days Mesh and cut it into 16 sections
to make installation easier.

"The panel was constructed in 16 sections to make transportation and installation straightforward. Prior to installation the sections were laid in situ for the client to make sure she was happy with the tones of the panel. She liked it all but decided that a softer blue would work better than the white in the big flower. This was not a problem because I had used mosaic mesh!"

Detail shot of the mosaic tiles that needed to be changed out
at the customer's request. Changing the tiles is easy by reheating
the adhesive and quickly switching out the design.

"A particular benefit for this installation of using the mosaic mesh was the easy process of changing a layer of cut tile in the big flower below to change the tone at the request of the customer. I just needed to reheat the individual pieces, remove them and replace them with a softer blue in place of white."

See more of Allan Punto's work at Arto Punto at http://www.artopunto.co/ 

SAMA 2014 ~ Mixing It Up & Making It Great!

Mixing it Up & Making it Great!
Expanding Your Creativity with New Products and Technology

Steve's thorough demonstration on using the Morton
Portable Glass Shop to cut a variety of shapes and tiles

The Society of American Mosaic Artists just hosted the annual American Mosaic Summit in Houston, Texas. For the second year, instructors Susan Gamble, Steve Shupper, and Carrie Strope Sohyda have taught the "Mixing It Up & Making It Great" workshop, in which student's learn about free-form compositions, exact cutting of glass and ceramic tiles and working quickly and spontaneously to finish a mosaic in under four hours.

Arranging Santa Theresa Tileworks theme packs
to guide mosaic composition.

The session began with students getting a walk through overview of the Morton Portable Glass Shop. Steve Shupper demonstrated the basics of glass cutting, followed by using the Morton system to make strips, squares, triangles and diamonds.

Heat setting No Days Groutless to finish off the mosaic without grouting.

Carrie Strope Sohayda demonstrated how she frames her mosaic with geometric shapes and sets everything in place using No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive. After heat setting the border pieces, Susan and Carrie talked about different ways to compose mosaics.

The border is set in place, and then Santa Theresa tiles are
moved around until the composition looks great.

After cutting glass and ceramic tiles and arranging the pieces, students were able to heat set their mosaics. The great thing about using No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive is that as soon as the mosaics cool down, students can be finished. Toni chose not to grout her quilt mosaic (below).

Not only did we skip grouting, we attached a hanger
to the back of the mosaic using No Days Groutless.

Students were given the option of grouting their mosaics to finish, as well. As soon as her tiles were heat set and then cooled for 5-10 minutes, Jennifer finished her mosaic by grouting. We attached hangers to the back of the pieces using the No Days Groutless, as well. That means that they are ready to hang instantly!

Jennifer decided to grout her mosaic, which she was able to do
as soon as the piece cooled.

Below are pictures of the sample mosaics that No Days Artist & Instructor Carrie Strope Sohayda made while demonstrating No Days mosaic adhesives in the vendor marketplace.

Carrie created a No Days Groutless mosaic in a free-form
style, adding and taking away pieces until the composition worked.

The border pieces were repositioned to straighten them out.
Repositioning or removing pieces is as easy as reheating with the heat gun.

See more pictures of the SAMA workshop on Facebook or Google+...

Post by No Days Adhesives.