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Flexible Stone Series · MBQSB
Fair Faced Concrete Panel
Concrete as it comes out of a good shutter: pale grey, faintly mottled, with the float marks and the small pores left in. No board marks, no tie holes, no drama.
Technical data sheet, MBQSB (PDF, 0.4 MB)·Colour card, 106 surfaces in four series (PDF, 10.4 MB)
This is the finish a concrete contractor calls fair faced, which means good enough to leave. The surface is a pale grey with a slight blue cast, mottled where the mix varied and smoothed where the float passed, and there is a scatter of small pores that the release agent left.
Four millimetres and 6 kg, on 1200 × 3000. It is the thinnest concrete in the range and the only one that bends to 300 mm, which means it can go round a column that was poured in place and never came out flat. That is most columns. Bought as board formed concrete for galleries and offices, where the formwork grain is the whole specification and a pour is not possible.
The mottle is the pattern
There is no pattern here, only variation: a slight change in tone where one pour met the next, a faint drift in the grey, a few pores. That is much harder to mould than a pattern, because there is nothing to hide behind, and it is why most concrete-look panels end up looking like grey plastic.
Gallery, then office
The gallery is a full-height wall with a shadow gap and a polished concrete floor, and the two greys are almost the same but not quite, which is the detail that makes the room. The office is the same sheet behind a reception desk, with oak in front of it.
Installed, fair faced concrete
Good for
- Gallery and museum walls
- Office receptions and lift lobbies
- Columns and curved walls that were never going to be poured fair
- Walls next to a real polished concrete floor
Not for
- Exterior facades; concrete stains and this will not patina the same way
- Anywhere a board-marked or tie-hole concrete is wanted — that is the Aggregate Wood page
- Walls that need to look warm
Round a poured column
The bend shot is a 4 mm sheet at a 300 mm radius. The use case is a column that was poured without a fair-faced shutter and is 8 mm out of round; the sheet goes on and the column is fair faced by Friday.
Bent by hand, no heat
Three greys
A pale grey, a mid grey and a warm grey, plus a chalk. On concrete the colour is the whole product, so the card is short and the samples are large: 300 mm squares, not chips.
Specification
Everything below applies to the Fair Faced Concrete as supplied. The PDF above is the same sheet we send out with a quote; ask for a printed copy and it travels with the sample.
| Sheet size | 1200 × 3000 mm |
|---|---|
| Thickness | 4 mm ± 0.5 mm |
| Weight | 6 kg/m² ± 0.5 |
| Item code | MBQSB |
| Substrate | Mineral powder, sand and fibreglass, pressed in a steel mould |
| Fire | EN 13501-1 A2-s1,d0, on a non-combustible substrate |
| Fixing | Polymer adhesive, or mechanical fixings on a ventilated frame |
| MOQ | Stocked colours ship from stock, no minimum |
| Lead time | 3–5 days for stock, 20–25 days for production |
Fitting it
Four steps, and the third one is the one that goes wrong.
Questions we get asked
How is this different from the board-formed concrete panel?
That one has larch board marks and tie holes from a formwork shutter. This one has no marks at all: it is the finish you get from a steel or ply shutter that was cared for.
Does it look like plastic?
Not if it is lit properly. The mottle is real variation taken from a sample wall, and the pores are at different depths. Under a flat fluorescent tube any grey looks like plastic.
Can it go outside?
Not recommended. Real concrete stains and patinas; this stays the colour it was made.
What is the sheet weight?
6 kg/m², so a 1200 × 3000 sheet is about 21 kg.
Sample of Fair Faced Concrete
A4 offcut, posted from Ningbo, free. Ask for the colour card too — it covers all thirty-seven surfaces in the series.
Same series