Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
mell_or

Cement Repair

mell_or
18 years ago

I need to repair a couple cement items.

#1 is a an oriental cement statue which was dropped and the legs broke. The breaks are clean in three spots. What would you use to repair the breaks? Glue or cement??

#2 is an old cement bird bath that is cracked and leaking. What would you use to reline the bath? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much.

Mary

Comment (1)

  • rockhewer
    18 years ago

    Hi Mary, Reparing the birdbath will much easier than the statue so I'll try that first. I'd just go with a silicone concrete sealant if its plain/unpainted. Easy to apply to the crack and force into it to get a good seal. If it's painted I'd go with a top quality paintable (usually acrylic) sealant, then repaint.

    The statue is more of a problem. It's very hard to match the original colors of the concrete and have the lines not be too noticable. Any type of glue or epoxy you use will be noticable. You didn't say if this was an indoor or outdoor piece either and that would make a difference too in a choice of methods.

    If it were my statue and the break lines were clean and didn't have have a lot of chips on the edges, this is what I'd do. I'd use a masonry bit and drill holes for pins in the matching breaks. Put in stainless steel pins (use SS bolts and cut the heads off) then use just enough epoxy to glue them back together without any squeeze out of the epoxy. Any epoxy line would be very noticable and if not colored will yellow from sunlight exposure. Colored epoxy will eventually get chalky and be very noticable too. The lines, if clean, will be much less noticable.

    There are a number of new glues out (Gorilla Glue for one and Elmers has another one similar) that say they good for stone or concrete but I don't have any experience with them. They need moisture to cure and actually foam a bit to fill gaps. They will make the break line a bit bigger unless FIRMLY clamped so there is no movement.

    Hope this helps a bit. Good luck.

Sponsored