OUR MATERIALS & METHODS
We are a team of skilled men and women with many years experience in producing high quality garden ornaments. Everything is done by us on one site, allowing us complete control in every step, allowing us to ensure the highest of standards.
DESIGN & CREATION
We work closely with a local sculptor and use our years of experience and feedback from our customers to create new and exciting items, great care and attention is made to ensure that not only does your item look beautiful that it is also functional, we have seen too many fountains in garden centres that just don’t run water well!
Once the item has been designed we manufacture a mould using industry leading techniques and materials: silicone and fibreglass. Silicone is used to give the fine detail to the mould, it does not shrink or deform allowing a crisp, sharp reproduction of the original design.
A glass fibre case is then built around the silicone to give the item structure and support during the manufacturing process.
MATERIALS WE USE
Our items are a reconstituted stone, the stone choice depends on you. The different stones we use all come from quarries in the UK.
Whether it is limestone (white or grey) or sandstone we get the raw stone milled from 6mm to dust. We bulk the stone out with large course chippings, this provides a lot of strength to the finished item.
As with all natural stone they can be slight colour tone differences between one load to another, please feel confident that your items will all be produced at the same time ensuring it is all the same colour, but the shades may differ slightly from that of the pictures on our website as they dig deeper in to the quarries. We mix the milled stone with add mixtures. We work alongside Armcon and add products called AP3000 and Armproof.
These added mixtures give:
- Improved strength gain at all ages
- Improved durability – more dense, less permeable
- Reduces segregation and bleed water effects whilst improving cohesion
- Improved surface finish
- Excellent workability retention
- Reduced permeability/less water penetration
- Improved durability, more resistant to frost attack
- Reduces efflorescence effects
- Improved colour retention in pigmented mixes
- Hardened surface finishes stay clear
- Reduced aggregate transparency effects
All in all these help create a product that is strong, durable and built to last. We also use a fibre reinforcement strand in our bowls and urns, these strands disperse in the mixing stage creating lots of additional bonds though out your item ensuring ultimate reinforcement.
Finally we mix in Lafarge cement, again this company has years of experience in producing a high quality sustainable cement ideal for pre cast use.
OUR METHOD
We use a wet cast method which allows for greater detail in the item and for consistency in it’s use.
The materials are mixed together in various quantities to our specification, then the mix is poured in to the mould. We use vibrating tables and sticks for compaction and to evenly disperse the mix fully though out all of the detailed areas of the mould.
The mould is then placed into our drying room to cure for 24 hours, once the item is cured we then carefully release it from the mould and store it in our warehouse to dry fully before dispatch. Once the item is dry, it is then hand finished to a high standard and wrapped onto a pallet for shipping.
