Garden Bird Repair – Steelstik

May 9, 2015

A few years back we were given a pair of decorative birds for the garden.

Before too long, the small one’s legs became detached and more recently the head of the larger one has come off. When you look at the design it’s obvious why these occurred as there’s just very thin sheet metal tack welded to round bar.

For the small bird I’d already tried a repair by adding a plate between the legs which gave a larger surface area to attach the legs. This has subsequently failed and the plate detached from the body. So for this one I’ve now added some large repair (penny) washers around the legs so there is a clamping action on the body. Given this new arrangement I could have welded it together but I decided to try out an epoxy putty.

Steelstik is straightforward to use, you just cut off a piece the size you need and kneed it until the colour is consistent. It becomes reassuringly sticky at this point and nicely bonded to the repair washers and plate.
For the larger bird, I cleaned up the inside of the neck as best as I could and stuck a layer of Steelstik around the inside. I then added a second piece to the exposed frame. Pushing them together seemed to create a good bond.

I then left the putty to dry overnight, and the birds were ready to be returned to the wild.

By Andy from Workshopshed Add Comment

  Posted in: Repairs