----- Original Message -----
From: "Bart Thomas"
Subject: [IBC] Ciment Fondu


Allen, et al.:
I have been following this thread with interest because I had never heard
of
Ciment Fondu until noting its use in the projects from this beautiful
book.

Bart,
I'm suprised. I thought Chase had done some work with it.
If you have the BCI "Indices" you could search it. I remember several years
Back when Bill V. had speakers ( Bill Jordan) who did some Ciment Fondue
work. I remembr they made a tall mountain that my late friend Mel Tellus
bought in the Saturday night auction. I'm sure these pics are in the old
mags.
Bill, what issue?
Shortly after that Brussel began making/selling many sizes of slabs made
from it.
My old business partner and I got a couple Japanese imported fiberglass
slabs and made silicone molds of them and sold them for several years until
sales dropped off. I thought Brussel still made them, but, perhaps not if
not in his catalog anymore. He had some huge ones.His sales of them probably
started to slow down also and since they were labor intensive......they are
dropped.
My buddy and I got our ciment fondue from a dealer in Cleveland and, as Mike
Persianno stated, it was made by Le Farge. It was pretty expensive stuff
compaired to mortar., 90 pound bags as I recall, could be colored easily
with mortar colors you can get at any supply store.
I still have a couple "scoop pots" I made from it over window screen forms.
I keep moving them around in my pot shelves in my tea house :)
I made several mountains in the past which I donated for auction at some
shows. . Somewhere I have pics of these. I used the window screen forms (
you could also use hardware cloth/chicken wire but you got nice bends with
window screen.) and then they were made ala paper mache' by cutting strips
of fiberglass auto body repai cloth, soaking them in ciment fondue and
laying on. After covering you could apply several coats of CF with a brush
over next few days.
In using the silicone molds we simply covered an existing fiberglass
imported slab with mold release and used caulk guns with 100% silicone caulk
and the same fiberglass auto body strips ( for strength) to cover the slab.
After it set it pulled off and we had a mold that you could lay over a small
pile of sand that could be arranged to different shapes however you liked.
Regards,
Dale Cochoy, Wild Things Bonsai Studio, Hartville, Ohio
http://www.WildThingsBonsai.Com
Specializing in power wood carving tools.
Yakimono no Kokoro bonsai pottery of hand-built stoneware

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