I have a restaurant job that we finished in October that had some existing Uba Tuba granite bar tops that wre to stay in place. There are two old field joints that looked 'ugly' and the GC just filled them with clear silicone. We have now been asked to repair these seams as the bar patrons have dug out all the silicone with forks etc and now the seams look even worse.

My initial thought wa to clean out the seams and use Intega adhesive to fill the joint level and make a somewhat 'patron proof' repair.

Am I on the right track with my thoughts??
Is Integra the best product to use??
What is the best method to remove the old silicone in the joints??

Thanks guys,

Tom in PA

Posted By Thomas Marino on 08 Jul 2010 08:36 AM
I have a restaurant job that we finished in October that had some existing Uba Tuba granite bar tops that wre to stay in place. There are two old field joints that looked 'ugly' and the GC just filled them with clear silicone. We have now been asked to repair these seams as the bar patrons have dug out all the silicone with forks etc and now the seams look even worse.

My initial thought wa to clean out the seams and use Intega adhesive to fill the joint level and make a somewhat 'patron proof' repair.

Am I on the right track with my thoughts??
Is Integra the best product to use??
What is the best method to remove the old silicone in the joints??

Thanks guys,

Tom in PA

Tom:

I just did this job:



There are four nasty silicone joints, three are visible. Your repair depends on the thickness of the joints. I was able to get my thin-blade Japanese saw between these. You want to remove as much silicone and contamination as possible, then flood the joints with your solvent of choice, I perfer acetone.

I double taped each side of the joint so you can screed off excess without worrying about too much shrinkage. Push the adhesive into the joints with a razorblade. When the methylmethacrylate sets up, peel the tape and scrape the joint with a perpendicular razorblade. Resist the urge to cut the excess, you'll pull adhesive from the joint.

If the joints are fat, you'll probably get some air bubbles and the methylmecraylate will be too thick to fill them. Use some super glue and hit it with excellerator. I'd tape again; that excellerator can cause a "bloom" which can be a huge pain to remove from certain granites.

If the joints are tight, you may have to use a water-thin acrylic. I've heard of guys sucking it through the seam with a vacuum, but I haven't tried that yet.
That stuff requires a two hour cure time; bid accordingly.

Scrape the super glue with the perpendicular razorblade and polish with some of Dani's Granite Polish or similar product to get the seam shine to match the top. This may have to be repeated, depending on the fussiness of you or your clients.

The seams could now be top polished, but that takes practice before you do it for pay. Uba Tuba is kinda tricky from what I've been told, but the seams will rival those of solid surface and no one will be digging them out with a fork.

The pictured front sink rail rocked before I redid the joints. It doesn't budge now. Sorry, the "after" pics didn't turn out.

Joe 

Joe,

Thanks for the tips. I was on the right track with my thinking and now I know it should work just fine. The one seam is fairly tight but I do have room to saw it out. The other seam is fairly large and ugly so I may choose to do it in two steps to eliminate large air bubbles.

Do you have any preference on adhesives?? (you don't have to post here, just email)

Thanks agian for the step by step info.

Tom in PA

Posted By Thomas Marino on 09 Jul 2010 08:56 AM 


Do you have any preference on adhesives??

Tom in PA

Tom:

I've always been a big Integra fan, but they don't sell in the small quanities I need. Artisian Adhesives will sell directly with no minimum and I did this repair with their stuff. The clear I used was completely colorless; sometimes "clear" means milky to some adhesive manufacturers. I tinted it with a kiss of Avonite Black for this particular job. The Artisan adhesive performed well.


Joe

Thanks for all the help guys, we got the repair done and all looks good. I did find a silicone remover used in the aircraft industry that breaks down silicone and then it can be washed away easily. Worked just great. We got the joints cleaned out and then 'rodded' the joints with foam rodding to prevent the adhesive from running out the bottom. Once secured in place we filled with adhesive after triple taping the joint. Once dry we leveled the adhesive with a blade scaper and buffed.
The one joint that was slightly mis matched was clamped to align while the adhesive dried and then we added a double layer of kevlar epoxied to the bottom for reinforcement.
All in all it was not too bad of a fix.

Thanks again for all the tips and tricks,

Tom in PA

Hmmmm.... I was looking for the thread where I commented on Artisan Adhesives and here it is.

When I went to use the same Artisan Adhesive I used on this job a week or so ago, the adhesive side of the tubes was solid! I drilled the end, thinking it was clogged, no luck. Solid as a rock.

I figured no problem, I've got another unused tube. Same thing, solid on the adhesive side.

I called Artisian and after giving them the batch numbers they apologized and sent out two replacements. I checked them upon arrival and both sides were fine. I used the adhesive on a job last friday and it seemed to perform fine. It'll be interesting to see if it cures itself in the tube like the last did.

Joe

I have a granite top that I need to separate the seams. How does one effectively do this without damaging the granite. I assume they are epoxied together? Any have any ideas????

Heating up the seam area will help soften the bond. There are specific heat pads made for that or you can use a propane torch. The torch can be tricky because it is possible to scorch the stone. Slowly warming the entire area evenly is possible though.

At this point we use a Gorilla Grip to pull the seam apart. It's possible to do without it but it's sure a whole lot easier with one.

There's no guarantee that the seam will pull apart cleanly but this is the way that we do it.