Cast Iron grit. New people to this post- I used cast iron "grit" from my local auto parts store that turns drums and rotors. It is free, uniform in size and easy to clean; use a fine mesh screen. It produces a very durable finished product. I am thinking of using it as the base for a faceplate. Just cast the rough product and light machine to finish.
They make all sorts of filled epoxy. It's been my experience working with epoxy granite type materials that as filler loading goes up into the 80% by volume range that strength starts to go down but stiffness tends to go up measurably. The modulus of metals is too low to get maximal stiffening but metal filled epoxies are a compromise between raw epoxy and ceramic filled epoxies but they are quite machinable whereas ceramic filled epoxies are not.
Products like devcon are sold at the retail level and are typically more expensive than epoxy bought for industrial purposes. Since it sounds like you are in Canada, you might call crosslink technologies at Epoxy resin systems Urethane compounds by Crosslink Technology and see what they can do for you in terms of reasonably priced epoxy.
Even by the rail car load, a quote I got last week from the local Hexion distributor suggests that thin epoxy comes out to about 3.00 a pound US.
Try sand 
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