Good points, John. Thank You.

"Good points, John. Thank You."

Betcha he didn't take any crap from those pilots either . . :yo:

Yup. Federal income taxes are voluntary, too. :)

:scratch:

I'll just keep it to myself I guess. And I always stand behind my work. :yo:

There's a difference between us tile guys in the field using or trying things compared to recommending them to the masses.

I'm making my own mbm for, um whatever but you won't see me posting anything up about it in the diy forum, or here, in fact please forget I said anything.

What's that

medium bed mortar

Ah got it

I used to take thinset and mix it with perlite for medium bed mortar. Considering some of the jobs we sub want us to use plain old $5 a bag thinset and I'm paying the difference on those jobs I'd rather stretch the good stuff because that $5 a bag stuff doesn't stick to porcelain.

I need to get my ratio of 80% sub work 20% my own closer to 100% my own.

When I first started working in Las vegas back in the 80's, all the trac homes were using yellow mastic. For ALL wet areas! No water proofing, no denshield just runny yellow mastic. IT WAS A DISASTER.
We didn't have a choice since we were getting paid 25 bucks a tub. We had to sling 8-10 of those bad-boys a day to make any money.
On the bright side, we had repair work on the side for the next 10 years.

Even today mud showers are rare in Vegas. Whenever they needed walls floated on the Union jobs, I would have to do them by default because nobody else had a clue! Thank God my Dad was a California setter who trained me right.

One thing that comes to mind with the discussion of mastic in showers - nowadays with the VOC rules - it means that mastics are mostly all latex based.

....as are all of the liquid waterproofing membranes.... so if they can be made safe for showers, so can mastics.

The premise that an air-dry latex based mastic pookie is inappropriate for showers needs some revision - it could very well be just as suitable as the favorite liquid membrane (from a water-compatibility viewpoint).

This is no endorsement of mastics at all - but just a point that they should be rejected on the actual specifications, not what defines them IMO.

Sorry to burst that bubble Kevin, but you can't make that comparison.

Although it sounds good in theory, it won't work in the real tile world.
The reason is that the liquid membranes are painted on a wall and not covered with anything until it drys. With mastics, especially when used with a large format tile (18x18, 20x20 or 1224) the dry times would not work out. In fact it might take weeks. I could see smaller tile, maybe 2x2 or 6x6 working with a ridiculously long dry time not grouted.
But after doing shower rip outs down here and seeing all the failed mastic jobs I would never use it in a shower area.

Anyone here remember PVA thinsets? Which by the way still exist in lessor priced products. Anyone notice that some thinsets are to be used for intermittent moisture and some for submerged applications? As long as guys are willing to spend $30 for a $10 product they will continue to be made.

Well, I agree, but now you are touching on the real (and still unresolved IMO) issue with latex in wet and or enclosed areas - how is the latex going to be exposed to dry and cure - so as to become waterproof?

Schluter has taken the stand that it can't - under/between impermeable tiles or membranes - and this is true for the latex in modified thinsets or as you state the latex in mastics.

yet inexplicably other manufacturers of membranes with decent perm ratings still expect and approve latex modified thinsets curing in these same impermeable sandwiches.... or is there really a major difference between Hydro Ban at 1.25 perms vs Kerdi at .75

.... yet Noble wall seal at only .22 perms still specifies latex modified under both the tile and membrane.....with a caveat of allowing only a 50% increase in drying time????

Sorry to obscure the mastic issue, but it did trigger the thought that it isn't really the latex factor itself, but all the other attributes and application specifics of thinsets and construction standards.