[Stonehenge]

I was getting my truck lettered today and chatted a bit with the owner of the graphics company. Seems he's working on a plan for an indoor water feature where he'll be carving rigid foam insulation to look like rocks, spraying it with truck bed liner material, then epoxying (sp?) it .

I thought it was an interesting idea - he said they are making outdoor signs using the same method, foam covered in epoxy or bed liner material, then painted.

This might be something to try for those small water features where you just can't get the size/type stone you want, or want to do something wild.

Anybody else ever heard of something like this?

[Bill Schwab]

I would be scared that water would enter the foam area and the whole thing decompose. Water running off is a bit different than standing in the stuff.

We used to use bondo on the curved back edge of boat transoms to make them square. A curved edge would make you loose .5-1 mile an hour. Then we put ployeurethane paint over the bottom after it was preped. It would not work for boats left in water.

Food for thought....

[diginahole]

There is a guy here in Port Perry that makes truly awesome artificial stone from sculptured concrete. I can't remember the name of his company right now, I'll try to find his website.

[diginahole]

Found it. This guy does some really nice stuff, and he seems like a really neat guy too.

http://www.stonescapings.com/

[diginahole]

Hmm.... got to thinking about syrofoam rocks..... wouldn't they float? That might pose some problems in a water feature don't you think?

[Bill Schwab]

Faux rocks are different than foam rocks, I would expect. Faux rocks are what they use in water parks all over the country, and they use quite a bit of them in pool construction our here. I am going to take a class to learn how to build them, and as I have heard, all it takes is chicken wire, mortar/concrete, and coloring, then a few finishing tools. They build panels and then set them in place and slap up the next one. If you look at the canyon walls the splits and so fourth are very similar to the faux versions.

[diginahole]

I think there is at least one element you left out of the recipe there Bill, an artists touch. It's the one element I don't have. Garret Klassen, the owner of Stonescapings was offering classes in sculpturing stone up here a few years ago. I didn't attend but I thought it was mighty white of him to offer the secrets of his trade to other tradesmen in the area. Here in Canada, our major theme park, Paramount Canada's Wonderland, has a whole mountain made of faux rock. It looks good from afar, but far from good. The artist was left out of that recipe.

My comment toward the foam rocks was sort of meant to be tounge in cheek... I'm sure it would not be all that difficult to overcome the floating nature of styrofoam.

[Stonehenge]

And I believe it would be several contiguous pieces to make the structure, not individual pieces, able to be swept away by a water current. At least from what I could discern talking to the guy. And actually, once the epoxy and bed liner have been applied, it's a lot heavier than you'd think. It'd probably still float, but has some heft to it.