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Artist must remove bad grout from mosaic tile sculpture of glass, ceramic, semi-precious stones (turquoise, quartz, jade etc)

2007

I have been working on a very large scale art project the past 2 1/2 years..its a 3-D 8 foot tall mosaic tile dolphin --- substrate of Bondo [affil links]/fiberglass/primer coated...UNFORTUNATELY, six months ago I had finished all of the arduous tile work and grouted with an old bag of black from Home Depot... B I G mistake :( :( :( .... I never knew grout had shelf life and either I used too much water, or it was too old...it NEVER completely hardened to its typical stoney surface....soooooooooooo, for the past 6 months I've been through 3 Dremel tools, 400 diamond bits and masques and goggles, asthma attacks et al....I bought new grout at Lowe's and grouted again last week...unfortunately the SAME thing has occured (not hard enuff) sooo, here is my predicament....I cannot even think about routing out about 600,000 teeny channels between my glass and tile and stones....is there a way I can melt or dissolve out the new batch of bad grout with muriatic acid [affil links] and then have someone competent in GROUTING come in and mix it up right to finish this catastrophic situation? I really only need to know if my materials will be able to handle the acid without losing color, integrity and what other maladies this acid might cause....I've already been paid for this work and am feeling very guilty about it not having been finished 6 months ago, and now I basically have to start all over again....

See Maya Emmy Dolphin to see the amount of work/drudgery/pride that I have invested in this and the 100,000 dollars (2 1/2 years at work) they have paid me...I really need help desperately with this situation as been through the less dangerous solvents and they only really loosened up my mastic which wreaked other havoc...I'd appreciate any and all expert thoughts on this matter...

sincerely,

Phyllis Michele Greenhouse
artist - Miami, Florida

I think that you can try to stabilize grout with 'water glass' [on eBay or Amazon] solution (can be used only if it can be dried perfectly- and try to avoid use of acid on semi precious stones).Hope it helps and good luck!

Goran Budija
- Cerovski vrh Croatia
2007