"PASTE FOR THE CREATION OF FLOORS OR OTHER FINISHED SURFACES"
Description Technical Field
The present invention concerns the technical sector of the building technology, in particular the sector relating the creation of floors or finished surfaces, either walls, desks or other architectural elements to be refined. Background Art Refining systems exist for internal and external surfaces of a building, usually using tiles in baked clay, ceramic or other materials, which are placed over the architectural structure so that it finally seems pleasant to look at, water-resistant and easy to be used and washed. Sometimes, wood, marble or other refining materials are used in place of tiles, but essentially, either applied by paste or other methods, they do not differ from the application methods of the above-mentioned systems .
In practice, once the structural work has been completed, it's necessary to provide a perfectly horizontal plane, called "base course", where, once dried, tiles are pasted. This refining system has many drawbacks.
First of all, it needs much time and application ability, as the tiles must be cut accurately, moulded according to the shape of the surface to be applied and then firmly pasted. Which involves a waste of time and money both for the labour
and for the purchase of the raw material having a roughly high cost .
Another drawback is that, since tiles are naturally flat even if of different shape, they are not suitable for rounded or corrugated surfaces, in which case it's necessary to resort to very small tiles, like mosaic, however always leaving small gaps or bulges.
A further drawback of the current systems is to generate a long series of rejects that are later thrown away, with consequent environmental impact and waste of money, both for the unused and lost waste of tile and for the cost of transport of the rejects.
In order to avoid this last drawback, sometimes rejects are ground and mixed again in order to form new tiles, but the results reached nowadays are not sufficient and, in any case, the tile created with the rejects must be then applied in a traditional way involving all the above-described drawbacks. At present, no valid systems exist to avoid the above- mentioned drawbacks. On the contrary, in antiquity, there was a system for the creation of floors based on the creation of a base course formed by a paste of water and ground waste materials, mainly used in poor houses. However, this system has not been used for many years because it was not pleasant to look at and, above all, for its very long laying time that made it impossible to use. In addition, it required the
necessary paste to be prepared on the spot, and obviously it never had the same consistency. Disclosure of invention
The present invention aims at eliminating the above-mentioned and other drawbacks, supplying a powder or paste mixture for the creation of a finished surface, without the necessity of a precise "base course" or expert labour, quick to dry and ready to be used in very short time. We reached this result adopting the technical solution described in the separate claims. Other characteristics of this product and its method of application are the object of dependent claims .
The advantages resulting from the present invention essentially consist of the fact that it's possible to refine any type of surface, either horizontal, vertical or oblique, regardless of its shape, as the product is able to mould to the shape to be refined; that it's easy to work and it doesn't leave clay or other wastes; that it's completely natural and biocompatible; that it solves the problem of recycling waste materials, as it's primarily formed with them; that it can be applied on any surface even if not perfectly levelled; that it rapidly dries and can be differently worked according to the desired effect; that the surface so created is resistant and solid; that it's cheap; that it's ready for use simply adding water in the proportions suitable for the work in progress.
Reduced to its essential structure, a paste for the creation of finished surfaces , according to the present invention, comprises :
- natural hydrated lime; - active aggregates, such as sand-lime, marble powder, stone powder, silica, glass;
- acrylic resin.
The acrylic resin employed is PRIIMAL AC33 that allows the paste to rapidly dry and, at the same time, it gives the finished surface strength and sturdiness.
Conveniently, the percentage of the lime employed is 25%. Conveniently, the percentage of active aggregates is 70%, while the remaining 5% is made of resin PRIMAL-TM SF 016 EMULSION. The active aggregates are constituted by marble powders and grits, sand-lime, silica, glass, stone of various colours and grains, in the proportions and for the purposes and layers we want to realize. For smaller layers, from 0 to 2 mm, finer powders are used, on the contrary for larger layers, about 10- 12 mm, thicker powders and grains are used.
In this practical solution, the paste is used adding water in the proportions suitable for the work we want to realize and for the layer of the surface to be created. In a different practical solution, instead of powder, the product is already prepared in the form of paste, adding more water and also a retarder made of cellulose. In this case, the
product has a shorter expiring date, since it will dry, even if not shortly.
Conveniently, active aggregates are waste materials, cut and/or ground into different shapes and layers according to the desired effect.
For the colouring of the surface, we select the desired tone of coloured marble powder and vary the relative percentage in the mixture . Colours might be improved adding natural earths up to a maximum of 10% of powders and grains. Also the marble powder and the stone powder may be in their turn cut and/or ground into different shapes and layers according to the desired finished effect.
With this paste, it's possible to realize surfaces ranging from few millimetres up to 3-4 cm and even over, preferably proportionally increasing the layer and the grains .
The proportions between the various elements of the mixture can vary according to the layer of the surface.
For example, in order to obtain a layer of 3 mm, we provide 40% of lime, 55% of active aggregates and the remaining part of resin. In order to realize a layer up to 2 cm, the lime will be reduced of about 25-30%, the percentage of resin will be the same, while the percentage of active aggregates will vary. Enough water will be added to the mixture. This is the way this paste is used:
Firstly, we work the paste with water in order to obtain a paste that can be laid over the surface and moulded or levelled according to the shape of the plane where it's applied. Once it has been accurately laid, after some minutes, we press it with a trowel (if we've realized a layer of about 2 mm) or with a float or other heavier tool if the layer is larger (2 cm or over) so that there are no gaps in the finished base course. The laying is preferably carried out on two/three occasions with trowel and float, alternating the layers of about 12/24 hours, according to the season, always beating and facing the product with heavy trowel. Now the product must dry. It needs only 2-3 days for the smaller layer of 2mm, but even 7-10 days for larger layers. Obviously, the drying time also vary according to the season and the place where the interested structure is. Once dried, it must be smoothed more or less, depending on the fact we want to highlight or hide the particular elements forming the mixture. The lighter is the smoothness the less visible will be the differences between the various elements and the finished surface will result smoother and more uniform. Vice versa, the heavier is the smoothness the more evident will be the differences between the various elements of the mixture.
The product can be dry or wet smoothed, according to the desired effects.
This work can be carried out with the "old" method, using straw oil or baked linseed oil diluted with turpentine in the portion of 50%, laid down wet over wet until reject, wiping off possible not absorbed oil zones with a rag and turpentine. Afterwards, beeswax mixed with carnauba wax in the percentage of 20% is laid down, on two occasions, with final polish. Another method to work the surface consists in laying down a transparent polyurethane paint diluted for 50% with suitable diluent, laid down until reject and waxed like the above- described method, which gives a greater mechanical resistance. Once the work is finished, the surface results resistant, solid, completely smooth, and it's impossible to see the "pores" currently visible between two tiles. In addition, as this surface is natural and formed by a smooth paste, it will not be damaged in case of accidental drops of objects, as a matter of fact, even if just scored, the aesthetic result of the invention will not be altered, limiting to note in that point the lower part of the surface that is identical to the upper one .
In practice, the constructing details may, however, equally vary as regards shape, size, position of elements, and type of materials used, but still remain within the range of the idea proposed as a solution and, consequently, within the limits of the protection granted by this patent for invention.