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Flexible Stone Series · MBLSS
Flow Stone Panel
The darkest and deepest thing in the range. Charcoal, with chiselled runnels running down the sheet like water has been at it for a century.
Technical data sheet, MBLSS (PDF, 0.8 MB)·Colour card, 106 surfaces in four series (PDF, 10.4 MB)
The face is cut into irregular vertical channels, 10 to 30 mm wide, with the ridges between them standing 6 to 9 mm proud. Nothing about the spacing is regular, and that is what stops it looking like a fluted panel in black: it looks like a cliff face that has been rained on.
Eight millimetres, 8 kg, and two sizes: 580 × 1180 for a sample board or a small return, and 1200 × 3000 for a wall. The colour is cast through, so a knock shows charcoal and not a white core, which matters more on a dark wall than on a pale one. Specified as a stone texture wall for the dark end of a room. Charcoal is hard to photograph and easy to live with.
Deep enough to lose a finger
Nine millimetres of relief is a lot on an 8 mm sheet, and it only works because the material is dense. Drop the light to a single downlight and the runnels go black at the bottom while the ridges catch a grey highlight, so the wall has three or four tones in it despite being one colour.
Whisky bar, then lift
The bar is the 1200 sheet floor to ceiling behind the bottles, with concealed lighting raking down it. The lift lobby is the same sheet in a lift car, where the dark surface hides the marks that a pale wall collects in a week.
Installed, flow stone
Good for
- Bars, whisky rooms and cellars
- Lift cars, where a dark wall hides scuffs
- Feature walls behind a reception desk
- Exterior entrance walls on a drained frame
Not for
- Small dark rooms; this will finish them off
- Anywhere it will be cleaned with an abrasive
- Walls that need to look light and airy
Charcoal, and three neighbours
Charcoal is the stock. The card adds a graphite with a blue cast, a brown-black that reads as dark bronze under warm light, and an off-white for the same profile. The off-white is the sleeper: same relief, entirely different room.
Specification
Everything below applies to the Flow Stone 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 | 580 × 1180 and 1200 × 3000 mm |
|---|---|
| Thickness | 8 mm ± 1 mm |
| Weight | 8 kg/m² ± 0.5 |
| Item code | MBLSS |
| 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
Is the colour solid all the way through?
Yes. A chip or a scratch is charcoal, not a pale core with a dark skin.
How deep is the deepest channel?
About 9 mm on the 8 mm sheet, measured from ridge top to the bottom of the runnel.
Does it show dust?
Less than you would think. Dust settles in the channels and reads as shadow; on a flat black wall it would read as dust.
Can it be used outside?
On a ventilated or drained substrate with the exterior face. Standing water in the channels is the thing to design out.
Sample of Flow Stone
A4 offcut, posted from Ningbo, free. Ask for the colour card too — it covers all thirty-seven surfaces in the series.
Same series