Marble dust

Freedee · Joined: 29 Oct 2007 Posts: 143

I was doing a Skimstone floor in my home, and thinking about how much I would have to charge for this. It was kind of fun to do, and not to labor intensive, but the product is expensive. The "White Powder" reminded me of marble dust which I have a small bucket of in the basement, (doesn't everyone). I remember that the marble dust was cheap, when I bought it about 10 years ago. (It can't go bad, it's just a rock.)

I tried to substitute some of the marble dust for the "white powder". It didn't work, or at least it didn't work well. It made the product very hard to work with. years ago, I added it to Kolcastico. I don't know if anyone uses that anymore. It was one of the first synthetic Venetian plasters available. It didn't enhance that product either.

I'm just writing this in case anyone is thinking of trying this. I'll save you some time.

The Plasterers Arms · Joined: 22 Dec 2007 Posts: 422 Location: Vancouver BC

hi there
it didnt work because marble powder has no binding abilities whatsoever,you would refer to it more as a matrix "sand"

the white powder can be replaced with "white cement" "the binder"

the marble powder used with vp would be for instance used in a pinch to fill a depression in a wall (expensively) ...the marble powder would help the vp from cracking due to shrinkage...marble powder is the "matrix" in vp..or most of em anyways.

Marlow · Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 490 Location: CT.

There is more than one marble dust. Calcium carbonate is sold cheaply as marble dust, (limestone and or chalk). The stuff you want is ground fine white Italian white carrara ......it does make a difference if going for shine.

arrwiley · Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 169

Well, for Skimstone it would be another deal entirely, as their powder is, as I understand it, Portland cement modified to dissolve into an acrylic mixture. I'd be interested to know if regular cement would be a possible replacement, but even given trhe industry habit of taking easily-found materials, giving them good packaging and marking them up 400%, I kind of doubt that it would do the trick.

So yeah. Doesn't really matter what kind of marble sdust you used there, though some kind of hydrated lime mixture MIGHT work; be intersting to see if it would, really.