Sandstone 'look' gargoyles

I am looking for the casting ingredients for creating a 'sandstone' appearence gargoyle. I have two of these myself that I bought from pasttimes in the UK, the particles are very small (a lot smaller than sand) and they hold a lot of detail while maintaining the look of a real sandstone gargoyle. I am guessing that it is some sort of Resin mixed with aggregate of some kind.... can anyone help me with what I can user and where I could get it from.

Many thanks

Make that www.stonecarver.com - I would love to get into work like this with my 'carveable concrete'.

And the new 'jesmonite' uses calicium cement, not gypsum, but still huge jobs of acrylic (45% solids). No formaldehyde/melamine now - thats a good thing.

I think that the Jesmonite sold or licensed the patent to Forton.

But it is still expensive, even compared to polyurethane casting systems.

The only link on that page is their email link. No gargoyles.

You beat me to it Gary..... i was about to jump on you for that one when I read your first post ... :-P

A mixture of; Calcium Aluminate Calcium Sulphate Calcined Clay Silica Sand

Jesmonite also used to be a supposedly poor exterior material (although I have a few sculptures in my garden made from the non exterior grade that have been outside in the elements for 6 years and just show a little surface pitting), but it now comes in an exterior grade. http://www.hbclients.co.uk/tersus/art/ applications.html

But back to the earlier post of putting sand in to resin and sand not being fine enough. Sand comes in many forms some has a much finer structure than others. Silver Sand has a very fine grain and makes a very effective surface when mixed in with resin. Keep away from sand with a moisture content as, if you are thinking of using polyester, you will inhibit the cure.

I guess you saw that I got the link wrong. It is www.stonecarvers.com, and he has a piece on the stonecutters union. Originally presidential bodygaurds. It made me think of my (few) favorite Simpsons episodes when Homer is inducted into the Stonecutters, a powerful secret society.

Doug Wilson did not really say what size or type of gargoyle he intends to make although I think the pastimes he mentions is a catalogue selling quite small cast sculptures .How does Jesmonite/Forton MG perform with a 'gel' type mould surface layer and a cheaper filler inside to make a solid casting?

I can imagine .Don't tell me about it! Principally I am a carver,and carvers are starvers ,as the saying goes. Perhaps there is a place for sculptors to use Jesmonite/Forton for limited editions or 'one offs' with a waste mould?

I know,the mannequin guys have got themselves a computer controlled rotational casting machine and they inject polyurethane resin into the moulds, they get some interesting effects with clear resin.Not quite a piece of cake,though! They went through a few quids worth of resin and a lot of time to learn to use it. When the machine rotates with a mould on it looks like an astronauts training machine, or something out of Metropolis.It takes 30 minutes from loading the mould to demould. The owner of the mannequin business told me of a visit he made to a GRP workshop in the Philippines where they did not supply their workers with brushes.They used their bare hands to lay up.

Goodbye Horrible GRP, Goodbye Horrible Piece of Rubber clamped to my face all day long. Goodbye feeling ill.

Jon Cattan

Just crying out for a young apprentice to be tied to as initiation

OK that is nasty but not surprising.

For heavens sake. Sandstone is just sand naturally pressed into stone. You dupe it by mixing sand with cement and casting it. For a better surface you acid-wash it. These are small, right? For quicker turnaround use an anchor cement. Or would you prefer loading a cyclotron with silica molecules and bombarding a horned toad? Yeah, let's discuss that technique til fall.