| Both exterior and interior
columns used in construction today are made from a remarkable
range of materials. While the ancients were limited to wood
and stone, today columns are turned out in an assortment of
artificial components that are both decorative and extraordinarily
strong. Some polyurethane based columns can handle weight loads
as well as traditional structural supports.
Fiberglass columns are a staple in new and remodeled buildings
today. A fiberglass column may be completely cast from the
raw material, or it may be a fiberglass shell wrapped around
some basic load bearing material such as concrete or wood.
Because of the highly developed casting and coloring techniques
used with fiberglass today, a fiberglass column can be made
to resemble almost any material.
• Fiberglass columns are equally suitable for exterior
and interior usage.
• A polyurethane core can make a fiberglass column
strong enough to be a load bearing component.
• Fiberglass is often used as a composite material
with other components such as gypsum, concrete, stone and
a number of different polymers
• Fiberglass casting techniques today can provide
intricate decorative styles to fiberglass column tops or
along the column shaft.
• Fiberglass columns weather well, requiring little
or no maintenance or repainting.
• Fiberglass reinforced gypsum is often used for highly
stylized cornices to match the ceiling material at the top
of an interior column.
Many fiberglass columns today will contain perhaps forty
percent fiberglass that is mixed with other composites to
achieve a desired effect. That effect may be load bearing
capacity, texture, or the need to mimic traditional materials
such as stone, plaster or marble. Custom sizes and shapes
are also a staple with most manufacturers. Many distributors
will maintain a stock of both decorative and load bearing
columns in a number of stock heights and diameters, with
bases and traditional top designs to match.
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