A Picture (Heavy) Tutorial of How I Seal Cracks/Fissures

[David]

This gets brought up from time to time so I figured I'd take some pics of the line I sealed earlier this morning and post them. This line wasn't effecting anything, but it was taking in water so I wanted to get it sealed to avoid problems down the road.
The first thing I do is make sure the crack is clean and dry. Next, using blue painters tape I tape along the line making sure I have a good seal right against the crack. You don't have to use tape, but for me it makes clean up easier and it sort of funnels the glue down in the crack. I used Great Planes thin CA here because this crack was relatively tight, but they also make a medium and a thick version if a larger void needed to be filled. After the taping is finished I start dripping the glue down into the crack and keep doing this until it stops taking it in. The CA is water thin and really works well at seeping down in the cracks. When it's taken its fill I let it dry then remove the tape and sand the area smooth and it's good to go.

Stand by for a few more pictures.

 

[David]

The first picture below is after the glue has dried and the tape has been removed. Not much clean up to do here and I usually just shave that off with a razor blade then sand it smooth. The second and third pictures are close ups before and after.

 

[Gamma]

Good tactic!

 

[mikael]

Nice work. I don't use tape. So the clean up is a little more time consuming. Next time I'll use tape.

 

[Brianskeet]

That looks good David. Really like the tape idea. One of those why didn't I think of that kinda things.

 

[runninscared]

luckily atm i have no issues with cracked stones but ive always seen people suggest CA, now i see a tutorial for it.

going to sub to this so when i do get a stone w/ a crack ill know how to fix it. excellent tutorial. clever use of the tape.

 

[life2short1971]

Hey thats pretty slick!

 

[David]

luckily atm i have no issues with cracked stones but ive always seen people suggest CA, now i see a tutorial for it.

going to sub to this so when i do get a stone w/ a crack ill know how to fix it. excellent tutorial. clever use of the tape.

Thanks. I've also had good success with using CA to glue broken stones back together. It's good stuff.

 

[Obiwan]

Great post!

 

[Kcnwea]

Good job, David.

 

[ChezPopp]

Question about this. Not sure what forum I read it on but it involved the use of coticule dust as well. I have used ca and it works well but can you mix in coti dust as well to make a paste and use that as a filler or do you need a different adhesive. Just wondering if anyone has the answer or if this was just another crazy post I encountered.

 

[David]

I did this just for cosmetic purposes (and because I was bored) on the side of one of my coticules. There was a chip in the BBW so I filled it and compacted as tightly as I could with BBW dust and then dripped the CA on top of it. The CA I use would never allow you to make a paste, it would cure the second the glue hit the dust.

 

[Kcnwea]

Question about this. Not sure what forum I read it on but it involved the use of coticule dust as well. I have used ca and it works well but can you mix in coti dust as well to make a paste and use that as a filler or do you need a different adhesive. Just wondering if anyone has the answer or if this was just another crazy post I encountered.

You can mix coti dust in, but that is usually used for larger cracks or even trying to repair a broken stone. Bart talks about it over at coticule.be. He also talks about filling the crack with baking soda and dripping the ca into it. I have done it before and it works very well. The coti dust would obviously look better color wise, but you are going to be able to spot the repair regardless