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We have access to comented stones which formed the first floor walls of an old home. They are perfectly squared off and would be ideal to use in constructing a new home or building dry wall around our property.
But . . . once the walls are broken up, the cement clings to the stones.
Is there any cost effective way to “dissolve” or otherwise eliminate the cement, other than just chipping away at it?
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Replies
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Muriatic acid would likely work. You'd might have to soak the stones one at a time in a plastic dish pan or pail, submerged in acid. You could help the final cleaning along with a non-metalic scrub brush. However, the acid will harm your eyes, and skin if it's left on a few minutes. You'll need chemical splash goggles, chemical face shield, rubber gloves, rubber jacket/apron. It would take weeks to do a lot of stones this way, and you'd have to keep kids and pets away the whole time. The acid would weaken after a number of stones, and would have to be replenished. Each stone would have to be rinsed thoroughly or the residue would attack the new mortar. If the stones were limestone or marble, they would dissolve, too.
Vinegar might work. It would be slower, but much safer.
How about trying a pressure washer, first. Or a sandblaster? Or invite your 20 best friends for a stone chipping party?
*Raymond,Air chisel.KK
*Wayne, muriatic acid sounds great for doing the job, but scarey to use. I think your best idea is a stone chipping party, along the lines of Tom Sawyer's devious means of getting his friends to white wash the fence he didn't want to white wash. Besides, how often do you get invited to a stone chipping party, anyway? Pretty special. Thanks for the suggestion. Ray
*Raymond, send your address and I'll come haul 'em away for you. They're useless, you'll never be able to get the cement off. Besides, those square antique stones are no good to build with. Joe H
*Raymond, yeh, listen to Joe, he's right about how worthless those stones are, Everything except giving them to Joe, let me have them instead... I'd put them in an old beat up cement mixer and let them rattle around for a bit before I tried to chip the cement off. Knocking them together would bust off a lot of the cement, then I'd find a comfortable spot and set the TV on to a football game! sitting there with a chipping hammer in my hand and a pile of stones would keep me out of trouble for quite a while. If any friends could be talked into coming over I'd order pizza and a few beers and have a contest to see who could clean them most (I'd judge by the amount of cement removed rather than stones "cleaned") I have a 120 ft. by 25 ft. (about 22,000 bricks) brick driveway that once was Hwy 12. As you can imagine the bricks had a lot of tar and asphault on them when I first got them. They cost me two cases of beer and a whole summer of my spare time laying them back down. What I did was use a skid steer to handle them a lot, I'd scoop them up and drop them over a steel grate that I used to seperate the bricks from the sand. The grate was set at an angle and the bricks would tumble to the side and the sand and stuff would collect underneath. That knocked off most of the stuff and what stayed on I'd either knock off before I laid or put tar side down. The bricks are well over ten years old now and when I have to pick up a brick because I'm changing something or whatever there isn't any sign of the tar that once was liberally splashed all over them.
*RayDitch the muriatic acid. It is HCL, hydrochloric acid which is a very corrossive monovalent mineral acid that reacts with the lime in the mortar to produce calcium chloride, a water soluble salt, and hydrogen, an explosive, noxious gas, and carbon dioxide as the "fizz" when acid meets mortar. Muriatic acid is not user friendly nor economical considering how much mass of stone that you have.Mechanical removal is it! Hammer and chisel, electric chipping hammer, masonary diamond cut off saw, etc........................It will be a labor of love !?????Iron Helix
*A wide masonary chisel and a large hammer will move a lot of mortar in a short time,
*Thanks, guys, sounds like (as I suspected) no easy or inexpensive way. Ray
*Raymond,Chip away, but not 'til you use them. Leave what you won't see when you rebuild. Use any acid for a final cleanup only after you're finished constructing. You might be surprised at how little cleanup is really necessary. If the original mason was worth anything, he would have considered each face for structure and looks anyway. You would do that again.jim l
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We have access to comented stones which formed the first floor walls of an old home. They are perfectly squared off and would be ideal to use in constructing a new home or building dry wall around our property.
But . . . once the walls are broken up, the cement clings to the stones.
Is there any cost effective way to "dissolve" or otherwise eliminate the cement, other than just chipping away at it?
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