Source for fake large boulders?

[Larry_Van_Horn]

This might seem a bit weird, but after seeing Greg's post on the the streams and ponds I thought I would throw this out.

I posted pictures of my pond construction awhile back. The pond is about 2/3 or an acre, and is now just about full. Around one corner (visible in the picture attached). I built a stone wall. The wall from base to top is about 14' high and is constructed from flat stackable rock from the local quarry. Each stone is between 1 and 4 tons. I brought them in on my truck and then the "pond guy" used his grapple excavator to pick and place them.

He is gone and time has passed. My design for this was to have a waterfall over the rocks. I have an 11,000 GPH pump, but need to create some more rock up top to serve as the outlet, and ideally a flat rock to cantalever out over the wall. I am just wondering if there are alternatives to using the real stuff that are not too expensive. Heck I see it all in amusement parks all the time. It would be costly to have him come back with his excavator just to place more rocks. I am thinking about concrete formed / plastic / styrofoam coated etc. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,
Larry

 

[Slamfire]

Movie studios build wooden frames and put foam rubber over the framework. The foam is made to look like rock, and I don't know where you'd buy it.

 

[OkeeDon]

I did a google search for fiberglass rocks. Here's one site with a lot of different sizes: Fake Rocks

There are others. I also tried "foam rocks" and got some got hits, finally I tried "fake rocks" and got a lot of hits, including this one, Fake Rocks, which has a book on how to make them yourself.

 

[Larry_Van_Horn]

Don,
thanks for your efforts. I found much the same when I did my searches. Problem is when you talk about big rocks the price $250 gets a little crazy. Heck for that price it would just be cheaper to bring back in the real stuff ($12 / ton), and bring the big track excavator in. Just wondering how it is done everywhere else to make it more cost effective to go with a synthetic as opposed to the real McCoy.
thanks,
Larry

 

[MossRoad]

Make forms out of iron and wire, then spray concrete over the forms, then use rubber molds to make "rock" patterns on the wet concrete.... very labor intensive.

Contact a trucking company and haul in the real deal as close as you can get to where you want them, or just bring them in yourself like you did before. Then, when you have enough to justify the cost of the excavator guy, have him come in and do it in one shot. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[8NTX]

There is a pool supply/pond supply store near us that sells fake rocks; some even have water spouts built in for using like a waterfall. Find a store that sells pond supplies.

 

[frank_f15]

i think MOSSROADS idea is the most plausible., and the real deal will hold up much better

 

[Deerlope]

MossRoad
Thats the way they do rocks at Sea World in Fl. and other places.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Here's what I'd do.

I'd bring up the line from the pump to an area behind the projected falls. There I'd break it down via a manifold to different sizes of clear vinyl tubing with ball valves.

Then I'd drill and pin my boulders, five, six, seven hundred pounders and plumb them.

What you'd need would be a drill comparable to a Hilti TE75 with a inch and a half bit, one inch bit, three quarter inch bit, and a half inch bit. You'll need some stainless half inch rod for pins. Granite counter top suppliers have a two part epoxy called "keemee". It works great to put the stones and pins together for good.

The one thing you always have to do when you stack one rock on top of another and you want water to come out between them is to be sure and make a bowl in the top rock.

If you just drill a one and a half inch hole through the bottom rock, put your vinyl into it, wedge, push, shove, it'll fit, not want to, but it will, trust me. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif But if you do that and then set a rock on top of it when you turn on the water it'll come out like it does off the back of a water truck, not pretty.

But if you bowl out the bottom of the top rock water comes up, churns, then comes out lazy like wherever it can all bubbly and friendly. The stainless rod can be cut into three inch long pins that hold the rocks in place hidden sorta kinda.

What is neat is you can drill through these rocks and have water coming up and out of them in just about any configuration your sick little mind can come up with. And if you see a flow pattern that you don't like you can take a small boulder, drill and pin it in the path, and just break up the party!

The only thing better than all this is to go ahead and drill the rocks for low voltage diodes. Water has more fun breaking up light waves than doing just about anything else.

 

[art]

I'm a little east of you but I bet the real ones are cheaper. Every farmer around here would love for someone to come in and clean his hedge rows.