Water Glass, Geopolymers, and Volcanic Ejecta

Water glass, Geopolymers and Volcanic Ejecta.

Submit water for beer, and that describes a typical Saturday night out when I was 18.

Just saying.

technically you could use silica but itd need to be on the colloidal size neighborhood. Its easier to get some of that plant water sorber , which is odium silicate.

Water glass is nothing more than that "silica gel"that's been acidified or basified.
Youll see most "How to do its" probably recommend using Lye and
Silica gel mixed at a 60% silica gel and 40%(volume) of lye . Then take it up in about another 10% DI water. and mix.(Be careful its gonna heat up a bit).

Why not, since youre studying volcanic rock, look at making a Pozzoloni cementitious mix (The Romans came up with this. Its a mixture of slaked lime, volcanic ash and sand and water.)
Itll last for centuries and is useful as a refract cement

If you make the water glass, youll pass through various silica gels (Silane and siloxane) which set up into hard waxy glass -like substances that are resonant when struck with mmallets.
We used to make musical instruments out of the stuff in the lbs.

We made one that made a Big Ben Chime sound , using large graduated cylinders that were crapped up past their use.

Man, I'm impressed. Pray without revealing anything revealing, might you reveal yourself as student, teacher, or expert of some sort, a geologist or even advanced rockhound

I used to be a chemist before I was a mining geologist. My lifes work has always involved elements and their surface reactions rather than acid/base or electrochemistry.

Its like being a truck driver for 40 years, you deal with much of the same **** and pathways every day.

Science is just a craft like any other. Im always blown away by really sharp legal minds that can build complex theories of cases from relatively obscure evidentiary things. Fascinating.

Man I envy your credentials. What attracted you to a2k and have you participated in other such sites

Me too, man.

I participate in FEW GEO sites, an art site, a wooden boat site, and a woodworking site where Im sucha rookie I can only learn from all these great craftspeople. I built a coupla bots nd redid a mjor one that e had for over 15 years but I sold becaue I needed to raie cash to buy a drill rig.
As far as woodworkI love doing hand wrought stuff like hand cut dovetails using the Japanese saws but as my left hand is getting more paralyzed I hve to modify how I hold chisels or planes. Ive given over to doing more machine wrought stuff like mortises and tenon joints. I will NOT, however, use auto dovetail jigs, they look kinda phony to me(too prfect).

I joined A2k back in 2003 the day after Chritmas). I was originally a member of BUZZ and they had a very active and lively art discussion group (there were some professional pinters nd a sculptor on the bords).
Then ABUZZ jut got totally wacky as the NY TIMES (the owners) lost control when it was shutting down. Robert started another thing based on his love of E.A. Poe and that site , called "Raven's Realm"(I think) morphed into all this.


Ive been making a lot of Shaker style stuff for the kids an relatives and my biggest challenges are dyes and paints that emulate the old shaker stuff.

Thanks fer the compliment but its not hard when one does something for a living for almost a half century. SOON however, I shall probably start forgetting the tough stuff. The nat thing about my field is that, most geos I know, do their craft as a hobby as well.

Thanks for that report Man

Just wait til you're my age