A piece has broken off the base of a cast stone statue. I'm planning to reattach it using a couple of frame fixers (whose heads are slightly below the surface) and epoxy, then to fill the fixing holes and any surface damage with some filler or mortar that will match the "antique stone" look of the statue. Does this sound like a good plan? What fillers should I consider?
Unless they are stainless steel the frame fixings will eventually rust if the statue is to be outside and the expansion will crack the stone.
If you use Milliput of te appropriate color, you wont need the frame fixings at all
I'd be inclined to try s/s dowels as well. Takes a bit of ingenuity to drill aligned holes without going in from the front but very satisfying when you get right:-)
You can buy special steel for bridging cracks but a bit of stainless threaded bar would do.
I plan to use SS frame fixers
I did wonder about internal s/s bars but decided that the potential satisfaction (and c*ck-up risk) didn't justify the time taken to make a couple of drilling jigs so I've drilled a couple of 8mm holes from the outside and counter-bored the holes so that some filler will hide the heads of the s/s frame fixers. The big question is what to use as filler.
This thing weighs 150-200kg and it's a corner of the base that's broken
- I wouldn't trust it without a little reinforcement, but Milliput silver-grey sounds interesting. Maybe regular epoxy for the internal area and then milliput for the fill to surface level.
There is a raft of *mix in the nozzle* resins for anchor fixings.
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Drilling and counterboring the holes, epoxying and securing with s/s frame fixers was all straightforward. Filling the holes and top of the join with Milliput went well and the final result is excellent (odd that a bit of water helps so smooth the Milliput - great stuff!). All that's needed is a wash with dilute black masonry paint to restore the "antique" look and job's a good'un, as they say. Moving the bl**dy thing from the garage to the garden was not so easy. It took two of us, two 4 ft lengths of plank joined to make a raft and several lengths of 4" pipe as rollers. Much use of levers, blocks, straps, trolley jack and crow bar.
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