Project walkway: Fixing a tile notch and grouting an edge

Recently, my colleague Sandra had a minor DIY project lined up: The relatively new walkway from the front yard to the front door was to get an additional lawn edge on one side. This should prevent birds pecking at the bark mulch from scattering it all over the walkway.

So Sandra’s husband and their neighbour got to the strenuous work, removed tiles and laid out the lawn edge on one side.

At least that’s how it should have gone, ideally…

Unfortunately, on the edge of one of the tiles, the angle grinder of the two do-it-yourselfers slipped off, leaving an obvious notch in the tile.

Sandra forgave both of them for their little accident, considered a repair with WEICON products and asked me if there was a way to fix the notch. To kill two birds with one stone, we also decided to seal the gap between the lawn edge and walkway with silicone.

For a quick repair of the tile, we chose our Repair Stick Concrete. It reliably fills and seals damages on brickwork, stone, concrete and ceramic tiles etc. with a maximum gap of 15 millimetres. Ideally, the coulour of the Repair Stick matched the tile perfectly in this case.

To repair the tile, I cut off a small piece of the stick and then kneaded it thoroughly with my fingers (wearing gloves, of course). The two-component adhesive needs to be worked until it forms a homogenous mixture. Note: After a few minutes, the compound is already hard to mould. That means, it needs to be processed fast! I quickly filled the notch with the adhesive and finished it using one finger. After just 60 minutes, the Repair Stick Concrete can be exposed to mechanical stresses and after 24 hours, the adhesive is fully cured.

I applied the silicone line between the lawn edge and walkway using our Silicone A. This adhesive is extremely elastic, ageing- and temperature-resistant and ahderes perfectly to steel, aluminium, glass, ceramic and many other materials.

For a straight and clean silicone line, you need the following things in addition to the adhesive itself:

Little tip beforehand: I cut open the top piece, also called dosing tip, with an olique angle and with the opening matching the width of the gap. That way, I could use the dosing tip for better control of the cartridge gun.

First of all, I cleaned the gap from soilings, such as little stones or mulch. For that, a hand brush or any other brush comes in handy. By means of the cartridge gun, I could apply the Silicone A quickly between the metal skirting and the edge of the walkway. The important thing here is to squeeze the adhesive out of the cartridge as evenly as possible.

With a spatula or one finger, the silicone line can be formed and waste silicone can be removed. A little drop of the water-detergent-mixture makes smoothing the silicone line easier and prevents the silicone from sticking to your finger or spatula. Our WEICON Smoothing Agent is also ideal for this purpose. I disposed the waste silicone using a paper towel.

Now, Sandra’s garden walkway stays free from bark mulch and the notch in the tile is also perfectly hidden.