Artificial stone construction material and method of making

Method of making an artificial stone building material comprising steps of:

• placing a generally rectangular mold on a working surface, said mold having a bottom and sidewalls, and having an open top;
• mixing one or more color pastes comprised of stone powder, cement, water and pigment, with said stone powder comprised of particles of a mesh size less than 200;
• adding said at least one color paste to form a color layer to said mold;
• placing a layer of metal mesh on top of said color layer in said mold, said metal mesh sized to extend from sidewall to sidewall of said mold;
• mixing a first backing layer using a stone mixture of stone powder of less than 200 mesh and stone particles approximately ⅛ inch in size, in approximately equal proportions of stone powder to stone particles, plus cement and water, with a ratio of stone mixture to cement of approximately 45 to 25;
• adding said first backing layer on top of said metal mesh in said mold;
• allowing said color layer and backing layers to dry into an artificial stone building slab, and removing said artificial stone building slab from said mold;
• with said artificial stone building slab having flexibility to allow at least 1 ¼ inch of flex in a 48 inch piece, and a density of approximately 4 lb per square foot.

An artificial stone building slab, comprising:

• a color layer made up of at least one colored cement mix, comprised of stone powder, cement, pigment and a glue, said color layer configured for placement on a vertical wall surface facing away from said vertical wall surface;
• a metal mesh layer embedded between said color layer and a backing layer;
• a backing layer adjacent to said metal mesh layer, configured for placement against said vertical wall and made up of stone mix comprised of half stone powder and half stone pieces less than ⅛ inch in size;
• with said artificial stone building slab having flexibility to allow at least 1 ¼ inches of flex in a 48 inch piece, and a density of approximately 4 lb per square foot, and a hardness of greater than Mohr 3 to allow sanding of said slab, and said slab being sufficiently resilient to allow nailing without cracking.