Rutland Dry Mix 211 Refractory Mortar, Masonry & Fire Brick Cement, No Heat Cure Required, Dark Gray, 2550F, 10 lb Pail

I have used this to coat and re-coat my 3 burner rectangular (Amazon bought) forge with some left over. First off follow the directions I made to much to watery and was a nightmare to adhere to the batting (had to let it dry a bit). It is easy to use and dries quickly. It has chipped or come apart in a couple places, fixable and may be my errors but that is the only negative. I have forged at least 25 knives and projects since last re-coat. Very happy.

applied this mortar to deteriorating mortar joints inside a brick fireplace. Mortar was missing in some joints. I used this product, waited a month for it to fully cure then started a small, low fire (just kindling & very small pieces) for about an hour keeping the temperature around 500-600 degrees, then let that go out. Seemed to work since this mortar is cured, hardened and no failure anywhere, no bubbling experienced & no cracking since we began burning normally. Would use again.

This cement is pretty easy to prepare, just add water until it’s the consistency you want for the application. I put it in my forge to cover a ceramic fiber blanket and prevent the fibers from escaping. In the areas where I only put a thin layer down, there are some slight cracks that formed under heat, but the pieces aren’t falling off or anything, just tiny lines formed. In the areas with a thicker layer of cement, there are no cracks at all, so the thicker layers are better and will definitely be able to handle the heat. The forge gets hot enough to turn steel glowing yellow-orange, so the cement can handle quite a bit of heat like advertised. This product contains a lot of cement powder, so if your application is relatively small like building a forge, there is way more than enough cement powder to get the job done, kind of wish they sold a much smaller container of this stuff. The cement cures very easily, just put a fan on it or leave it outside for 24 hours before putting under any heating and it will be good to go. This cement was also much cheaper than a lot of the others on Amazon and advertised greater max temperature conditions. Would definitely recommend for forging and other applications!

Had some renters douse my firebox with water to extinguish it during a long, and very hot burning fire. This cracked and eroded the cement in the firebox quite badly. I removed all the loose pieces down to the metal mesh, filled the craters back in with this cement, let it dry and then followed the curing instructions to the letter. It cracked during drying before curing a bit, but the cracks appeared superficial. Over 6 months since then, it has helped up pretty well though it is breaking apart a bit in some areas and some pieces are coming loose. Overall, the firebox is still in much better condition than it was before I performed the repair, so there is that. After this winter season is over, I'll chip away any loose pieces and apply another layer - which I suspect won't need to be anywhere as substantial as the original repair I made. I do really like that this product was VERY easy to apply and work and it adhered extremely well to the existing masonry of the fireplace even while working. I did mist the existing masonry with clean water to dampen it before applying which probably helped. All in all, I would buy this product again.

So I like the performance and I like the container if comes in which can be used for various other things afterwards like cleaning my tools and doing the sponging of the brick. I’m not a professional mason but the consistency seems on par with what I’ve worked with before. It’s like a very fine fluffy concrete powder. It does dry rather quickly and it is super easy to over water which can also loosen it up. It sponges off great. It dries incredibly hard. The only fault I have with it is it took a while to arrive. I didn’t realize I needed as much as I did so I had to place multiple orders and ended up taking three weeks from start to finish to complete my pizza oven because I had to keep waiting for more to arrive. I was hoping it would be done in a day or two but ended up taking three weeks overall but six days to build and six orders. Unfortunately this product isn’t stocked anywhere else either so I was stuck with this process. And because of the weight of the product, over ordering and then returning it wasn’t a practical option.

Worked as it should heat results on fire place

I particularly liked that I could mix a small amount or a large amount. Any excess that was closed properly was usable 3 months later

I used this as the top layer of my open pit forge. Worked great.