Tuesday, November 1, 2022

REPAIR A BROKEN CLAY POT

Anyone know a good way to glue clay pots back together?  This is one of my favorite pots, a strawberry pot we used to use for herbs at the house in town.  It was always hard to find one that wasn't just "holes punched in the side" and this one has the actual little cups and it grew such great herbs.

Want to bring it back into town and put on the balcony but of course, can't use it like this.

It had soil in it and and was probably wet from the rain.  During our mega freeze a couple of years ago we guess that as it froze, it expanded and split.  It's a clean break with no missing or little pieces.


In fact, as you can see here, it will just fit back together when we just stand it up and put the halves together.

Seems like it should be a very easy to fix to make it usable again if we can just find a good glue or adhesive to put it back together.  We have another clay pot that we like that has a similar split/clean break.

Any suggestions?

26 comments:

  1. Anything planted in a claypot or not must be brought in during freezing temperatures.
    I would suggest using weather proof Gorilla Max Strength glue of which is also water resistant and dries clear.
    I Always have this on hand; not just for clay pots but also for ceramic pieces, etc.

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    1. One more thing; Before applying glue, be sure to clean the broken edges of the pot really good for the glue to stick better.
      Wipe the edges with dry cloth and then go back with damp rag to clean; let dry really well before applying the glue.
      You may to want to put some sort of strap around it to hold it altogether until it completely dries; maybe like an old belt, or whatever you have laying around. My policy; use what you have handy.

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    2. Great advice. Yep, this one was turned over in the flower bed, hadn't has plants in it in a season or two and we forgot int has soil. I'll Iook for that glue. We have some bungee cords in the barn that should work. Thanks!

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  2. Me being me, I'd use zip-ties .. Maybe with Elmers Glue. That''s me tho.. Have you seen the Mended With Gold fix

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    1. LOL I was tempted to do that, ha. I haven't heard of that but I'll look for it. Thx!

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  3. I would go with Colleen's suggestion!

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  4. Gorilla Glue Epoxy Clear will work great. They always have it at Tractor Supply and sometimes the Dollar Store or Family Dollar.

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    1. There is a Tractor Supply on our way to the farm. Will check it out.

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  5. E6000 found at Lowes or Hobby Lobby. Especially good for ceramics. Have used it to glue many pots and they have held up outside just fine.

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    1. E6000! We used some of that once upon a time to glue the glass base back onto a table centerpiece. It worked great. I will have to check that out. Thank you!

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  6. I'm never successful at gluing things together even when I use super glue or gorilla glue. It's one of my many failings. Good luck.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. I've glued a few things over they years, most recently a headset at work that broke and, so far, so good, ha.

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  7. Make sure the glue is waterproof. Put pressure around it to get it to dry together tightly. Then, after it dries thoroughly ad a bead of glue to the crack. Even if you don't use it for a plant, you can at least be sure that water won't penetrate in the rain or even humidity. All my strawberry pots had little cups. Yours is a really nice pot.

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    1. Thanks! Yeah, we like the ones with the cups, they are always hard to find like that. Most just have a hole poked in it, ha. Good advice, thanks, we'll give it a shot.

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  8. I have a strawberry pot similar to yours. And it's broken like yours. So I'm here to get advice on repairing mine also.

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    1. Stay tuned, I might work on it this weekend, we'll see how it goes, ha.

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  9. I have also had success with E6000. You can use masking tape around the pot in several places to hold it in place while it dries. Aunt Judy

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    1. Another vote for E6000. I will have to do some googling on these suggestions. Thanks for the advice, have a roll of masking tape on standby if needed, ha.

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  10. Gluing terra cotta together is tough because the surface has loose particles. You glue it and the next layer of particles breaks. I would suggest a wrap of some sort, perhaps chicken wire or gauze and some plaster of paris type material. I'm going to guess there is something at the home improvement store... Big zip ties as mentioned above would work, too.

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    1. I wondered about that. I'll do some more research and hey, if it doesn't work, at least we'll know we tried, ha. You know, zip ties are something we need from time to time and never have them. Need to add them to the stash in the shop/barn just in case. Thank you!

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  11. I have no advice on a glue. I'd wrap it with wire, copper would be lovely with the terra cotta. Or drill small holes along both sides of the break and "sew" it back together with wire. I'd probably do the wire in addition to any glue used.

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    1. I like how you think. turn it into a work of art at the same time too. We'll see how gluing it will go, might see about this as a backup plan. :-)

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  12. I have never actually had any luck at all at gluing terra cotta pots together. Amazon has plenty of pots with 'cups', but tbh, I'd probably go with https://www.google.com/search?q=terracotta+strawberry+planter+pot&oq=terracotta+strawberry+planter+pot&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i22i30l2j0i390l3.10362j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#oshopproduct=gid:5074751700652554153,mid:576462687232199347,oid:1579916849549125232,iid:10956149382598718086,rds:UENfNTA3NDc1MTcwMDY1MjU1NDE1M3xQUk9EX1BDXzUwNzQ3NTE3MDA2NTI1NTQxNTM%3D,pvt:hg&oshop=apv

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    1. Great search, thanks. I'm willing to give it a go, for experience if nothing else but if nothing works, we'll know how to score a new one. We love the pockets on these, since most are just clay pots with holes poked him them. Stay tuned we'll see how it goes. :-)

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  13. Jumping in here kind of late but what about landscape adhesive? Comes in a tube like caulk. I used it to glue some pavers together to make my raised borders around my trees and it worked great. It's thick like putty or caulk (it doesn't run) and is easy to use.

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