Flexible stone veneer

Flexible stone veneer is a veneer with a layer of stone 1 to 5 mm thick. Flexible stone veneers should not be confused with traditional stone veneer. It is used for both interior and exterior and especially where bending to a curved surface is required. Flexible stone veneers are made from various types of slate, schist, or marble.

Flexible stone is an innovative material and such a great alternative to heavy stone and paint. It is made of the natural marble chips and an acrylic aqueous dispersion. The stone can be applied on any wall: concrete, masonry, wallboard, metal, plywood and drywall and can be glued on any cementitious adhesives. It is used for finishing various types of facades, balconies, garages, columns, fireplaces, and restaurants.

Flexible stone veneer is made from a thin layer of stone stripped or peeled from a metamorphic stone marble chips or slab, rather than cutting from a solid stone or precast composite material. Thin veneers (from .5mm to 2mm thick) of slate, schist, or sandstone (metamorphic rocks) are pulled away from the original thicker stone slabs by adhering a thin layer of fiberglass/polyester resin composite backing. There is no grinding of the surface to make it thinner. When the resins cure the composite is "pulled" or "stripped" away from taking with it the thin layer of stone. This process only works with layered rock and marble but not with granite. There are many companies around the world manufacturing it, major companies like Euro Stone Veneer GmbH of Germany, Stone Sheets of the United states, etc.

Flexible stone veneers are less unsustainable building materials because they only use the top layer of stone. This means that a thick slab of slate can reveal hundreds of layers of stone while leaving much of the stone for future generations. Processing this new material also reduces scrap because requiring tons of stone to be quarried, transported, mined, or processed is not necessary. Less fuel is used before and after processing this material because of its light weight. Additionally, in a single crate hundreds of square meters of material can be transported where traditional stone products would require larger trucks and equipment to move and handle the raw slabs.

Flexible stone veneer varies in thickness, color, and texture and will generally carry color and texture from the original stone it is pulled from. The processed stone sheets are similar to the original slab and can vary widely from another similar stone of the same type. As the materials are made from real stone slabs and marble with an acrylic, each layer varies as well the texture of each sheet has a unique finish.

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Wikipedia