‘Thin veneer’ real stone project

[LazySOB]

My only real questions are:

1) Do thin cut real stones weigh significantly more than cultured stones that are the same size?

2) Is it any harder to get cut real stone to adhere to mortar than cultured stone?

As to the issues you brought up:

Cutting: I tried this out on 10 stones. Am using Harbor Freight’s $299 saw with 10″ diamond blade, fixed blade/motor with water spray, and rolling trolley. Surprisingly easy to cut. Sure, it’s harder to do than tile, just ’cause there’s more material to cut, but easy nonetheless. You just hold the rock on the trolley, slide it under the blade, then roll it over and do the other side. If you accidentally brush your hand against the diamond blade, you’ll get an abrasion, but nothing like a fiber blade. May use leather gloves to avoid any abrasions.

Base and waterproofing: I’m putting this on OSB (waferboard). Per the cultured stone mfr instructions, the sequence is 2 layers tar paper or equiv with 6″ overlap, lath, mortar, stone. With 2 layers of waterproofing, I don’t think there’ll be a moisture problem.

Height: on my fireplace inside the house, I want to go about 13′ high. On the outside wall, 8′.

I’ve worked thru the material handling and waterproofing issues, and really am not worried about them at all.

If I can figure out material density and adhesion issues, will probably do a test section this weekend. Got blessing from 4-way inspector a couple of days ago that the framing is OK, so the only thing standing in my way is doing it.