Flexible stone veneers are a newly developed category of very thin flexible stone. Flexible stone veneers should not be confused with traditional stone veneer. Flexible stone veneers are considered a true stone veneer in the same way that wood veneers are very thin sheets of wood. Some of the industry names used for flexible stone veneers is "Ultra-thin Slate", "Txtr-Lite™", and "Slate Lite™". 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

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

, schist

Schist

The schists constitute a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is...

, or sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

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Manufacture

Flexible stone veneer is manufactured using a manufacturing process which strips or peals each micro thin layer of a metamorphic stone 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 taking with it the thin layer of stone. This process only works with layered rock and not with granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 or marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

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Sustainability

Flexible stone veneers are sustainable 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.

Material Characteristics

The appearance of 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 each layer varies as well the texture of each sheet has a unique finish. Standard sheet dimensions are 2' x 4'.

History

Flexible stone veneers were first created by accident in 1995 when a slate furniture designer (Gernot Ehrlich of Germany) found that when resins used to bond slate tiles were removed from a broken table top a remaining stone skin, or veneer, of the original stone was left attached to the resin. After many years of research and development the process was perfected to an entire new series of veneer products. These materials are now produced worldwide and used for flooring, cabinet fronts, door skins, wall covering, columns, furniture, and wherever flexible a real stone look is desired.

Standard Application

Applications of flexible stone veneers include: backsplashes, window sills, residential flooring, ceilings, walls, columns, curved surfaces, furniture, light weight signage, lighting, shower and bath remodeling or new installations.

Installation

Installing flexible stone veneers is typically done by cutting the sheet using long nose tin snips and then adhering to a substrate using various adhesives. Because the flexible stone veneer sheets are waterproof they can be used in most wet locations. These materials hold up to most indoor/outdoor environments other than extreme low freezing conditions. Like real stone these flexible stone veneers can also be sealed using wood or stone sealers to bond and protect the surface while bringing out the colors.