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Date: | Sun, 8 Apr 2007 19:18:09 -0100 |
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Mike,
I have been a bit at odds with the lime mortar revival in pointing out
that it is fairly obvious wandering around the building stock of New
York that not all old buildings were built with lime putty. This does
not seem to stop freshly minted Columbia grads, and lime product
suppliers, bless their hearts, from trying to apply lime based
solutions. I understand that the slaking of lime at a date that I do not
remember was banned from NYC some time ago. How one can presume from
that information that the buildings were built with lime mortar is
beyond me. I can see though that if one is less geographically exposed
to building stock that the world might look as if it were built with
lime mortar. On the one hand I suppose it is good to argue to not use
Portland everywhere for everything, on the other I am strongly in favor
of understanding that if a structure were built with any earlier mortar
technology that it would not perform as a system in a manner that a
Portland solution would necessarily work well with. I believe that one
has to be very certain what it is that they are introducing into a
system when they begin to make up material solutions that do not match
to the original. Not to say that thoughtless substitutions are not made
up every day of the week.
I like the fact that the history of natural cement has a direct
connection with cutting-edge military technology. The closest I believe
that masonry has now to military applications is in engineered
ceramics... unless we also count caves and bunkers though they do not
seem to be too cutting edge.
][<
--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>
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