How To Make A "Hand-Carved" Stone Planter

How To Make A "Hand-Carved" Stone Planter PLANTERS Planters 27-4-22 Antique chiseled stone troughs for garden planters are anything but cheap if you can find one. But you can easily make your own with the help of a book called Making Concrete Garden Ornaments by Sherri Warner Hunter, Lark Books. The book offers clear and easy-to-follow directions for 24 projects ranging from simple to advanced. Custom recipes for various types of concrete mixes are detailed in the book. I decided to try one of the ideas in the book. The "tufa" trough is made from a mix of Portland Cement and organic matter such as peat moss. The mix sets up in 6 to 8 hours, is easy to work with and then dries to the appearance of old hand-chiseled stone. I first made a form out of two 10 by 34-in. side panels and two 10 by 10-in. end panels cut from 3/4-in. plywood. Sides and ends are butt screwed to form a simple rectangle. I coated the inside of the mold with used motor oil. Once the form was prepared, I mixed up one part cement to three parts potting soil (without fertilizer). You can also use one part cement to 1 1/2 parts peat moss, 1 1/2 parts perlite and 1/3 cup of polypropylene fibers. You simply mix the dry ingredients and add water to a workable consistency. It's a good idea to mill the peat moss through 1/4-in. screening to remove large particles. Care should be taken to tamp down the mixture to eliminate air bubbles. Once the casting has set for 6 to 8 hours, the form can be unscrewed and removed. Then the fun begins. Using only a kitchen knife, a putty knife or broken saw blade, hollow out the trough. A knife works best for edges, while the putty knife works great for removing excess material. The author suggests using a saw blade on the flat surfaces to give them more texture. I used a steel wire brush for the same purpose. This is also the best time to ream out a drain hole in the bottom of the trough. Once you're done shaping the trough, leave it uncovered for another 10 to 12 hours. Then move the pieces outside, spray with water, wrap in plastic and cure for at least two weeks. Like any concrete, the longer it sits, the stronger it becomes. Other beginner level projects include fossilized stepping stones, ornamental spheres, and planters. The stepping stones use a sand mortar mix and impressions from leaves, stems and other materials to create the appearance of fossils in the stones. Advanced projects introduce more sophisticated techniques, using polystyrene forms and armatures. Armatures are cores of hardware cloth wrapped around tubes and covered with a high fiber content mix. The combination produces a strong but lighter structure than a simple form would allow. Many of the projects in the book are the creations of professional artists and frankly held little interest for me. However, the recipes and clearly illustrated sections on forming, construction techniques and surface treatments were worth the $17.95 price tag. Contact: FARMSHOW Followup, Jim Ruen, 107 Deer Ridge Road, Lanesboro, Minn. 55949 (ph 507 467-7770) or Lark Books, 387 Park Avenue South, New York, N.Y. 10016; website: www.larkbooks.com).

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