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 Product Review
Faux Bone™
Creator Robert Dancik
A few days ago we published a project by Robert Dancik, called PMC and Faux Bone™. We got a few letters from viewers asking us more about the Faux Bone™, so we have decided to do a product review on Faux Bone™ to tell you more about it.
Sheets of Faux Bone and tools
 Faux Bone™ is a new, user friendly, inexpensive and extremely versatile material. Faux Bone™ can be cut, and carved, sawn and sanded. It can be filed, hammered, polished, drilled, stamped, riveted, inlayed, dyed, and painted. It can look like ivory, have the patina of aged ceramic, be polished to a pure white, or, of course, look like bone. You can heat and bend it with nothing more than a small embossing heat-gun. It is so strong you can rivet on it, die form right into it, or hammer metal around it. Faux Bone_ is perfect for artwork as varied as jewelry and book making, sculpture, or printmaking. It can be easily embossed to make texture plates for PMC and basket makers can use it to simulate Scrimshaw on the tops of Nantucket Baskets. Rounds of Faux Bone™ can be heated and dapped (formed into a bowl shape) and filled with other materials or combined to make hollow beads. Its strength makes it ideal for use in tool making such as bone folders for bookmaking or as handles for files and stamps. It can be carved and used for printmaking and then the Faux Bone™ “plate” can be patinated as a finished piece itself.
 Story Bracelet
We think that this “magical” material could be used for many things that not even it’s inventor, Robert Dancik, could think of. I asked my friend Bridgette Rallo to comment on Faux Bone™, since she took a class from Robert, on how she liked the material. “The deal on faux bone is that is it extremely easy to work with and quite versatile. It saws and drills easily, takes color well, can be heated and stamped -- all in all, a very useful and creative product. Did you know that it's Robert's product? He developed it himself and markets it, and you have to buy it through him.”
 So it’s easy to use, you can do everything with it and you have to buy it from Robert….hmmm I wonder if he charges you an arm and a leg...like your local gas station? We went up to Robert’s website and found the pricing for the Faux Bone™. Not bad at all! The product is sold in 8” x 8” squares and then by thickness. A 1/16th thickness is $6 per square, 1/8th thickness is $8 per square, 1/4” thickness is $10 square and 1/2’ thickness is $15 a square. He also has pre-made Bracelet Blanks from $35 to $55 per 4 blanks based on thickness again. Robert also has a few tools that are optional and I’m sure that would make you life easier, but they are not required to work the material.
Robert has also prepared a very detail PDF that you can download for free that describes more of the possibilities that you can do with Faux Bone™. This is a worthwhile document if you plan to work with the material since it also includes directions, safety instructions, and artistic comments. You can download it here
Robert has made numerous pieces from the material and we have shared just a few on this page. So we encourage you to go up to site and check out both his gallery and the Faux Bone™ Pages and let your imagination run wild with ways to use this new artistic material.
Visit Robert’s Website at www.robertdancik.com and the Faux Bone™ section for pricing and examples of Robert’s work in Faux Bone™
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