How to make a concrete sticker or Brick Sticker aka Brickers

I used to call my brick stickers Brickers, but I thought it was too corny. Here I am again working on this concept and it is as if the previous stuff I did does not apply. I think I need to backtrack on my previous work, but if I just add the new products I am working with together without referencing the old work, then I may come up with a new solution to the problems that I faced when I stopped working on the old project. If I remember correctly the problem was that the brickers were boring unless you decorated or drew on them. Also it didn't make sense to have one brick as a sticker since one brick fails to make a pattern or the effect that bricks are known for. I did stick on bricker on a highway post and it is still there, no worse for wear.

Now my concept is to actually make a concrete sticker that has a purpose, which is to adhere a protective surface to my shingle house structures and with concrete being the most resistant product that I can find to weathering. Vinyl sticker paper seems to have the most dimensional stability, but making the two work together may be difficult, because nothing wants to stick to the vinyl. Still dimensional stability is the secret to everything. If things don't move against each other then they will stay together, but if materials change shape, expand and contract at different rates as the temperature or conditions change then that will create space in between the materials. Any space will allow for moisture and then moisture will expand and contract inside of the items thereby increasing any existing differences in the shape or space between items. This is the science of decay and these are the forces that bring giant boulders to the bottoms of mountains, piece by piece as they are fractured over thousands of years of weather. Had these boulders been coated properly, then they would still ride high above it all, but it just doesn't happen that way.

So by sealing a surface with a good sticker, or bricker, the subsurface is protected from weathering and such, but the sticker has to be adhered in such a way that no water can seep in and break it away from the subsurface. Assuming the subsurface structures are insulating each other by keeping the heat and cold from coming in between them, then their bond should last much longer than if there was not protective layer covering them. Vinyl stickers do peel and release from their subsurface, but I think that is because they are directly exposed to the sunlight and not covered themselves by a protective layer like cement. This is also why a bricker made with epoxy won't work as well, because the epoxy would conduct the heat into the sticker, whereas, a cement coating should insulate the bottom from the heat or reflect the heat since it has is harder to conduct heat through the cement. How much heat and for how long can a vinyl sticker last? Not sure, but if the space in between the sticker and the subsurface is kept like a vacuum then it should last until the exterior decays or the interior rots away.

My prior experiments had me printing to make the bricker and or applying adhesives to the back of thinly printed bricks using a mixture of plaster and acrylic known as Forton MG. Now that I think about it the reason that I may have stopped using the Forton gypsum based mixture is that I realized that it would not survive outside unless it was coated because any plaster and gypsum mixture is still subject to absorption of water and decomposing faster than materials that resist water to begin with or that can be saturated and won't break down. Plaster based materials just aren't good for exterior use and if you have to coat them with thick sealants there is still the risk of penetration by the elements and the sealants will eventually break down on the top surface. Now I am trying to make the top surface, the cement surface, the most resistant surface to the elements with or without an additional coating.

Adhesive Used for License Plate Stickers

Every time I register a car and get the little sticker that goes on the tag I am impressed with the adhesive that is used and how well they stick. The sticker is very thin and usually I have to stick it on top of another sticker, but it seems to grab well and adhere smoothly. The only drawback is that you don't want to mess up with the sticker because it seems almost impossible to peel back off without tearing the sticker apart. This could be due as much to the thin sticker as it is to the adhesive that is used on the sticker, but I really want to try that glue.
br>I've got some label adhesive that I got from Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond and this stuff is pretty good for a lot of surfaces, but I don't know if it creates the strong bond that this super adhesive does. The thicker label adhesive works well on uneven surfaces and fills voids like an acrylic paint. I have tried to use it as a layer in between epoxy to stick items onto vinyl sticker paper, but it seems like too many steps.

Cement Stickers - adhesive backed cement relief designs

How do you make something unique these days?

1) Google the topic and see what comes up:

Usually you can stop here, since most everything has been done before and the most obvious things that have preceded you in your efforts will show up by using the first few words that describe your item or creation.

2) Check out patents:

I don't know how to do this, but if you find some technical phrases that relate to your product, then a patent may already exist that deals with this technique or product.

Assuming you find nothing, then you may have a unique product or procedure. I have been playing with a bunch of different techniques under the general term, Photo Fresco, but I may have gotten closer to identifying a workable product that doesn't come up when I plug my phrases into the search engine.

Previously I mentioned the idea of Brickers, that is stickers that are like bricks, so you can put them on things and basically make a brick wall with stickers. The print was an actual brick-like material and it was a fun idea. Now I am expanding on this concept with a thin layer of cement and if this works, I am thinking that cement stickers are even better than brick stickers. I've succeeded in making epoxy stickers using a wide range of pigments, some of which can resemble cement, but I am going a step further with the idea of using cement in the molds instead of epoxy. My first test have been a success, however, the edges are not as smooth as with epoxy.

The benefits that come from a cement sticker are simply contained in the weather resistant characteristics of cement versus epoxy, resins and plasters. Ultimately the exterior surface protects the interior surface, so if the outside is strong and resistant to weathering, then the interior, i.e. an adhesive vinyl substrate can survive longer. My comparison is whether or not a well protected vinyl sticker is as good as a layer of paint or adhesive?

I have been testing glues and paints to try and see which items are the most compatible with cement, but the preparation dictates the ability of a paint or glue to work with cement and the dry times are restrictive for where these things could be used. A sticker can be used almost anywhere and I haven't found any cement stickers when I do my Google thing, so it looks good that Cement Stickers may be a unique thing.

Portable Strutures, Yurts and Tents

I did a little Googling for portable structures and this is what I found:

Hurricane Proof Shelters: The InterShelter

http://www.intershelter.com/

Yurt Domes: Shelter Systems - Tent Yurts

http://www.shelter-systems.com/

Exposition Domes: Pacific Domes

http://www.pacificdomes.com/

Geodesic Dome Shelters - Dome Guys

http://www.domeguys.com/geodesics/129/disaster-relief-shelter-domes/

And it goes on...

The point here is to see if my curved shingle structures are different from these popularized dome structures and if mine are at least as good as these other types of geodesic domes. These dome structures that I found online seem to be good for disaster relief efforts, trade shows and camping. Or maybe that is the best market for selling these types of portable structures and their most compatible use.

Ten Pounds of Wood, Cement and Epoxy - That's It.

How much can you get into ten pounds anyway? I am trying to make a shingle by recycling some previously used screen printing frames. This "shingle" also needs to serve as a wall structure and decorative art piece in order to build a curved protective shelter for outside use. I have gotten pretty far along with the concept, but each time I think I am ready for protection I either run out of money or rethink the materials and try to make it a little better. Often I end up back where I started, but still there are minor changes, hardly recognizable to the human eye, that make the differences worth the effort. Durability, detail, cost and weight are the main factors that I am trying to balance with these photo fresco composite frames that are now shingles, but the invisible agent is also adhering them together.

Recently I went through a test where I applied rice paper to the back of setting epoxy and it looked great, for awhile. I left them on a pile outside in the weather and slowly they started to curve and bend. I left them for a couple of weeks and came back to find them curled over like a Fortune Telling Fish and the two materials were literally cracking apart from each other and the epoxy was breaking away from the paper. On the surface this looked like a good idea with the rice paper providing a thin structure to support the epoxy and potentially a texture or surface for more epoxy or adhesive to attach to, but it didn't work. This is the case over and over again with different materials and until they go through an exhaustive test it is hard to feel comfortable that things will work in the wide range of physical environments that shingles will find themselves in.

I am more of a craft person and kind of an artist more so than I am a structural engineer. This means the limits of my ability to create a product for the real world have probably been reached, but by trial and error I am working out the details and hacking together a shingle structure that should work as good as a kid's playhouse and be as durable as a shelter at an Occupy protest campsite. Which brings to mind the other characteristic that I would like to employ and that is modular. I love the idea that the frames could be taken apart and transported quickly and easily, thus making them tent-like too. I know this is too much to expect from ten pounds of wood, cement and epoxy, but I think I am very close to making that happen.

Yesterday Cement on Epoxy, Today Epoxy on Cement

I keep going back and forth with the casting materials to determine which product is the right surface for the exterior and which product is the right material for the interior. Although there are many considerations, including but not limited to resistance to weathering and exposure to sunlight, finished detail and strength, cost and ease of use and ability to release from the molds, as well as, to adhere to the frames with minimal hardware and labor. Cement or a hybrid of cement, like surface bonding cement may be the best exterior coating that I have come up with and epoxy is the best chemical mixture that works well for bonding and sealing a piece to a wood or aluminum frame.

My previous experiments were almost settled with a combination of epoxy on the outside and cement on the inside, but no matter what I do I have to worry about the epoxy on the outside looking worn from exposure to heat and cement on the inside releasing from the frames and falling on the interior of a structure. Over the last week I made a veneer of cement that measures less than a quarter of an inch and I liked the amount of detail that it preserved. Bonding to it immediately wasn't successful, but I think I can work with a thin veneer of cement on the exterior as a better surface for weathering and use an epoxy cement type of mixture to bond the top layer and adhere the whole piece to a frame. I don't like the idea of drilling through the thin veneer of cement for bolting the frames together, but I think the top surface needs to be finalized and then I will work around the problems that are created as a result of using these materials once it is finalized.

Cement can be painted and should resist the absorption of heat more than the epoxy and by resisting the heat this should create a more stable temperature for the bonding layers and reduce the shrinking and expanding more than if I used epoxy on the top layer. The plastic finishes like epoxy and polyester resin seem to create very hot surfaces and in some cases that will crack sooner than I think they should. Although the fragility of the cement layer is potentially the weakness with a thin layer of that material, I am hopeful that if I back it up with more rigid and solid materials I can make it strong enough for the job at hand, which is to make weather resistant frames that can be used like tiles and shingles to build a dome like structure.

From brick I cometh

To brick I fallen