- Prepare the base If you want your resin bound driveway to last a long time, you need to ensure that you prepare the base properly. Remove any block paving, grass or soil and dig down until you hit solid ground. Lay a sub-base of asphalt for good permeability. If you’re laying over the top of your current driveway, make sure that all cracks are increased into a ‘v’ shape with a saw and ensure the surface is dry and weed-free.
- Mix the resin You must follow the instructions on the materials you have to the letter if you want the curing process to work. Usually batches come in ‘Part A’ and ‘Part B’. Keep the resin container secure and on a protective surface to avoid splashing, then mix Part A for 10-20 seconds at a slow speed with a helical bladed mixer. Add Part B and mix thoroughly at a slow speed for about 2 minutes until it’s blended together.
- Mix the dried aggregates and sand with the resin Place a quarter of the aggregates into a mixer, then add the pre-mixed resin and start a stopwatch. You should then add the rest of the aggregates before slowly adding the sand. When you’re happy with that mix, stop the stopwatch. That time is the time that you need to spend mixing any other resin and aggregates to avoid colour variation.
- Lay the mix on the surface Transfer the mix to the work area then plan a laying route. When the mix is laid out, use a very clean trowel to spread the mix. Clean it regularly during the process to avoid dragging aggregates out of place. Once the aggregates stop moving in a fluid movement and become solid, stop trowelling. Then you can polish the surface to give it an attractive shine.
Dunbeath
Dunbeath is a town in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road. It was the native home of Neil M. Gunn (1891-1973), writer of The Silver Darlings, Highland River etc., a lot of whose stories are set in Dunbeath as well as its Strath. Dunbeath has an extremely abundant archaeological landscape, the site of countless Iron Age brochs and an early medieval reclusive site (see Alex Morrison's historical study, "Dunbeath: A Cultural Landscape".) Of Dunbeath's landscape, Gunn created: "These tiny straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate charm. In boyhood we get to know every square lawn of it. We include it physically and our memories hold it. Birches, hazel trees for nutting, pools with trout as well as a periodically visible salmon, river-flats with the wind on the bracken as well as going away rabbit scuts, a riches of wild blossom and tiny bird life, the soaring hawk, the unanticipated roe, the old graveyard, ideas of the folk who once lived much inland in straths as well as hollows, the past and also the present held in a minute of day-dream." ('My Bit of Britain', 1941.). There is a neighborhood museum/landscape analysis centre at the old village institution.