Can You Use A Chicken Wire Or Steel Armature?
Yes, steel and chicken wire are very common and versatile additions to cement and concrete. As long as the connection to the steel has almost no air gaps. PTP coats so densely, water cannot migrate through it to the steel.
Please visit our Planning page for everything you will need to plan your piece.
The single biggest long-term destroyer of concrete sculptures (and bridges and buildings for that matter) is rusting of encapsulated steel embedded inside the concrete. Concretes can sometimes be porous if improperly formulated and prepared. Water will then slowly migrate through them naturally over time. That water can often find the steel encapsulated inside a structure and begin rusting. As steel rusts, it gradually expands, and with a slow immense pressure, will gradually shatter some structures from the inside.
The exception to this is either cold galvanized or stainless steel. These special steels do not rust and are safe to be embedded in a PTP sculpture.
We have a comprehensive video on Armatures for all sculptures here
We have a shorter one here