Lithomex - Anyone have any experience?

[Woody3]

I believe I have finally sorted my lime plaster dilemma. So thank you to all who responded

My next task on my programme is that of repairing my sandstone mullions, cills and heads to the internal face of the windows.

There are a couple of mullions that have eroded away quite badly to the point where they've lost their original profile. These had been hidden by 2 layers of cement render. It's surprising that externally the mullions are in good condition.

I've been doing my research, with the help of a stone mason, who as advised me to repair the mullions with lithomex or similar.

http://www.stastier.co.uk/nhl/guides/stonerepair.htm

Has anyone got any experience of using such material? What are your thoughts?

Thanks

 

[Feltwell]

No experience but I'd be interested to hear what you find out. Do you really want to re-build eroded stone though? Is the issue cosmetic or structural? If purely cosmetic I'd be very wary of a re-built profile looking new & false.

My issue is some idiot has used expanding masonry bolts on a couple of sandstone lintels in the past, which has broken the lintel. Structurally they are "locked in" and appear to be OK - they got the OK on the structural engineer's report when I bought the house - but the holes and worst of the crack need filling as a cosmetic repair more than anything.

You could try "Lime Green" and see if they've got any customers who use that product - no idea if they'd give out details or not, but I've found them to be helpful and I know they distribute St Astier products. I use them as a lime supplier purely because they're local to me.

http://www.lime-green.co.uk/catalogue.php?Plv=1&Pid=2&Cid=6&Clv=1?

 

[Woody3]

Thanks Feltwell. I'll contact them in the coming weeks to discuss my scenario.

To be honest with you, the reason we want/need to do it, is so our new timber windows frames will fit as they should, without bodging the gaps with silly amounts of putty/lime pointing.

It's funny you should mention about masonry bolts. Our cills had 3 inch screws embedded in them which caused the sandstone to blow.

I don't believe any of the mullions are structurally unstable, but I wouldn't want much more of the sandstone to erode away before I started to worry, hence my thoughts of acting now.

I'll try and get some photos of the mullions/cills etc to show you whats what.

I definitely don't want to lose the character!

 

[Gervase]

I've used Lithomex to repair stonework and it's pretty good. Where it particularly scores is in the reinstatement of damaged detail - I had to repair some mouldings above the windows of a Victorian house recently, and was able to take a silicone cast of some existing mouldings next door and use Lithomex to create the copies, which were then fixed in place with stainless steel pins and a slurry of lithomex. Far cheaper than carving the replacements from freestone!