Garden Railway Forum

This may turn out to be a long thread, or a short one time will tell, depending on my patients

I've acquired some slates from work, or rather offcuts of slates anyhow, and seeing the slate splitting thread on here, thought I'd try for a full slate building, I've got a tile cutter, which I'll use to slice them into blocks, then using a suitable silicon glue, for want of a better word, will stick them together. Then grout with something yet to be decided......(cement is an obvious choice), but may stain the slate??

I applaud your determination to use real slate to make structures and have done so myself, BUT..... avoid silicone like the plague! It is not an adhesive and will certainly de-laminate when it gets wet.
When you cut slate it has a light covering of slate dust which is what any bonding agent will stick to, in time this will become separated from the block and your work will fall apart. If possible use something to coat each block, I use SBR and allow it to dry, before sticking them together. I have found a hot glue gun quite good for this but sometimes you need to reinforce that too, possibly with cement or waterproof tile adhesive spread inside the structure.
I hope this helps and you don't have to rebuild your structures, especially as we are approaching wet and cold weather.
This water tower is the first I made this way and it lives outside in all weathers.

Thanks Peter, I was planning on using something like this, it says on the back that it sticks to slate, stone and wood, so is suitable for building structures I think But like you will be starting with something small like a hut or water tower, and spread quick setting cement inside the walls for strength

Lots of solvent in that I hope! I have tried gripfill green and non solvent pink. The pink was a disaster with slates peeling within 12 months. I have used gripfill and waterproof tile cement on concrete piers and they have held for 2 winters.

Nice piers  

I'll stick some together then let them dry, ill then try and pull them apart, and see how strong the bond is

Might actually get around to cutting some slate tomorrow night to make a start At Steam toys Lincolnshire yesterday with the mamod forums

JCSteam:119978 wrote:cement is an obvious choice, but may stain the slate??

Excess cement can be dissolved with 'muriatic acid' from a builders merchant or DIY shed. It's skool name is hydrochloric acid, so take care!

It very much depends on your method of construction.

If you are sticking slate to a vertical surface using silicone - forget it; if you are using silicone as internal glue for the horizontals in a wall - perfect.

Hi there, I hope you are doing great. Yes, I agree with Tuppenced. Cement can be always messy. While building any structure cement can stick on to the concrete, slate, mortar, walls etc. Muriatic acid is a good option to clean the stained tiles or slate. But you should make sure that the acid is diluted with water to reduce its effect. Also, always remember to add acid to the water starting with a small amount. Microscrub is also a good solution for removing the grout residue.
Our house is newly constructed and we got slate tile roofs installed. By mistake, some of the roof tiles were messed up with cement during the construction. At that time, I had seen contractors using muriatic acid to remove the cement.