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…continued from page one
Rock on!
by Susan Brimo-Cox
“The amount of detail needed depends on the viewing distance,” Long explains. “Take zoos for example. The viewing public is a distance away, so a shotcrete backdrop might be all that’s needed. In a museum, if they wanted a mine shaft for people to walk through, a molding process and GFRC is a better technique because you will have the detail of the rock,” he says.
If hand-carving is required, you should keep that in mind when you design your mix — and it’s all a bit of a balancing act, says David Taplin, vice president of CemRock in Tucson, Arizona. “It’s easier to carve with smaller aggregate, but with smaller aggregate you need more cement. Cement makes the mix slipperier, but sets up quicker. But you can put in retarders so it doesn’t set so fast.” One thing Taplin is firm on is having a low slump for less shrinkage.
That the rock looks natural is very important to Long. “We’ve shied away from too much rock work [in order] to balance the project with other elements, such as plants and architectural elements. [We want to] make it appear that the rock work is part of the environment instead of an add-on.” To do that, he often includes plant pockets.
Knowing a bit about geology is important to achieving realism, says Wallace. And, for coloring, it helps to be an artist, he adds. Custom Rock, he explains, favors topical color, with light colors serving as a base, then using darker colors and different shades to create shadows and variations in the surface colors.
Taplin says CemRock uses water-based latex paints thinned down, “almost like a stain,” to color its synthetic rocks. Application techniques, he adds, include spray, spatter, pouring, sponging and ragging.
Residential work is a growing market for synthetic rock. Mike Davis, president of Rock Pools by Mike Davis in Quartz Hill, California, has created complete pools with waterfalls and rock slides, koi ponds, retaining walls and has rock-veneered homes — he even rocked a picnic table. “It’s very creative; not two jobs alike,” he reports. When working with customers, he asks, “What do you visualize?” Then he creates a pencil sketch, but “it always changes from the paper to the back yard, because you get creative.”
Davis gets his customers involved in the process. “I hand them a trowel and have them help sculpt the rock — the kids, parents, dad.” Doing so gives his customers additional pride in the project, because they helped create it, he explains.
Breck Viley, owner of Breckenridge Rock Works in Santa Ana, California, does a lot of exterior applications — pools, waterfalls, water features and the like — but has also created synthetic rocks for a wine cellar that now looks like a cave. “Anything you can think of, we can do.”
Viley makes a point of educating customers how to take care of their synthetic rocks and how to maintain them. He advocates sealing once every two years.
“Smaller projects — like pools, ponds, waterfalls, retaining walls — are a good niche for pool contractors and concrete contractors,” Taplin advises. These projects might require a week-and-a-half to two-week timeframe, but adding them to a standard project can increase the profitability of a job. For example, “If someone spends $25,000 to $35,000 on a pool, they may pay an extra $10,000 to $12,000 for rock work so they have something special, something different.”
But remember to not go overboard. “I’ve seen people get carried away and everything is out of scale,” reports Paul Horton, manager of Roseburrough Tool Co. in Orange, California. “In a small back yard, an eight-foot high rock looks like a volcano.”
The growth in this market means there’s lots of opportunity to go around.
“A lot of the really big guys are booked out two to three years, so commercial facilities are looking for smaller companies,” observes Long. And, while it’s not cost effective for a large company to do a smaller job, the “big guys” sometimes look for local talent on some of the big jobs they tackle. “We’ll utilize local personnel. The benefit is we have professionals to work with… They know concrete; we show them a new application. Everyone gets compensated and the customers are happy.”
Smaller companies that want to do larger projects can, in turn, look to the larger companies for what they can provide. “Molds and creating panels can be expensive and require special equipment, but small contractors can purchase these from large commercial installers,” Taplin says.
If learning how to create synthetic rocks out of concrete appeals to you, the timing is right. Around the country there is more demand than supply in both residential and commercial applications. Luckily, if you work in concrete already, you’ll probably use all the same tools, materials and stains. And like on your other jobs, it’s good to keep construction notes. You never know when you’ll be called back to add on.
Contractors
CemRock
Custom Rock International
Lakeland Co. Inc.
Rock Pools by Mike Davis
Training
JPJ Technologies L.L.C.
Other suppliers
Applied Concrete Technology Inc.
Multicolor Specialties Inc.
The Rock Garden
Roseburrough Tool Co.
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