Glass Block
Home Up

Since the bar was my first project in glass block, I enlisted the help of my father who was experienced with brick laying.  

First the maple sill is constructed to form the platform that the glass will bear on.  The main job of this is to distribute the load evenly across the floor.  If the floor was spongy and bowed under the weight, the load would be resting in only a few spots, cracking the local blocks.  Since the floor ultimately rests on the concrete slab, I didn't need a substantial sill, but wanted to make it possible to remove the whole thing later if needed.
Next, I taped the edges of the sill so that the asphalt roofing cement in the next step doesn't get everywhere.
Yuck.  I think the point of this stuff (the directions were pretty much adamant about it) is to prevent the wooden sill from wicking away all of the moisture from the critical sill mortar joint - significantly weakening it.
The first block goes in on its bed of mortar.  Constant checking of level and plumb was pretty essential since the joints are larger than the spacers that are supposed to make this step easy.
At this stage, my only job is controlling the video camera...
However, it isn't long before the mortar on the lower courses is curing and I haven't had the chance to adequately clean the blocks.
This was a late night.  I got much better about cleaning the joints before they set up in later projects.  Like anything, the second time is much easier.
The result is very striking, and I still haven't cleaned all of those joints.
Here is the rough proposed shark design to be done in neon in the bar before the cabinets cover the back.  This picture is in July, 2000.

 

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