Does anyone use a concrete colored paint suitable for the foundations and trim of plastic-type buildings? I tired Floquil and it is sort of a greenish gray. Yesterday I tried Poly-S and it it comes out a medium gray that really doesn’t even look like basement concrete. To me, a concrete paint should look like the sidewalks in front of most homes or the foundations of those homes. It should be like a sandy pale white or a sandy beige, not a medium gray that just doesn’t look all that pleasing to the eye, at least for me.
Try aged concrete from Polly-S, it’s more tan in color. Also check out craft paints at Walmart or Michaels, they’re cheaper and have many shades to work with.
As the poster above said, Wal-mart. They have a concrete colored paint that when it dries, looks like concrete. I got a quart can of it two years ago and still have plenty.
I have found Delta Creamcoat Acrylic paint the best for concrete. For old concrete I use Sanstone, which has brown in it, and Mudstone, which is more on the gray side for new concrete. Mix it with white to get the color tone you want. I use Mudstone on station platforms and wash it with India ink to show dirt and age. You can buy it in Michael’s Craft store for about 75 cents per 2 ounces. It sure beats the RR paints by color and price.
I agree with you on the Floquil cement. It’s definitely more greenish in color - like wet cement.
When I painting my FM Coaling tower, I custom-mixed Floquil cement with Reefer white or Antique white and liked the results. I think it was either 1:2 or 1:3. I’ll double-check that when I get home tonight and get back to you on it.
Take a look at almost any concrete or concrete rendered wall rising from pavement and you will see that the lower area is spattered with a deep brown (or one of a few million other colours of dirt) dust held in place with a mix of water and goo. this is usually thicker toward the bottom and fading out toward the top. Just how high this mess rises depends on passing traffic - from only the dirt splashed up by rain to stuff chucked up and layered by passing trucks.
Ok, so when you’ve probably air brushed this on in several seperate coats to build up the effect… you will notice that there is sometimes also a similar spatter of green…
having added that you will discover discolourations from stuff leaking and/or streaking down the wall…
Back at your question… most plain colours will not look right because when we look at walls like this we are not looking at a single plain colour except when it is very new… when it stands out and looks odd.
hope that this helps.[:)]
More…
Where vertical meets horizontal inside corners usually have a fillet of fine crud at the least. When you finally place a structure (in, not on the ground - unless it is brand new and un-landscaped) it helps to run a fillet of thick gooey paint of suitable colour(s) into the joint. If you use something like a water based oil paint (from artists stores) it will fill the gap but not glue the building.
Looking t some pics of factory buildings the concrete is almost an orange buff (ie there is part of the red spectrum in there) Significantly there are lots of grey areas… many of these descend strakily from higher edges… I suspect that the upper flat surface is pretty grey with accumulated crud. (Crud in this case = rain soaked dust… you’d be amazed how much dust settles out of the atmoshere).
Joints between concrete structural elements are caulked with mastic which is black when new rapidly dulling to dark grey.
Thanks, Dave. Interesting analysis and micro view of concrete. You’re right. It is a bunch of colors. I’ll try to add some of those different “flavors” you mention once I decide on a “base” color. But the solid medium to dark gray of the Poly-S concrete paint is just too unnatural for me to even think of adding in variations in color.
Just had another thought… where utos are regularly parked trunk to concrete wall there is often a spatter of black mess. Someimes, as outside a home, this is pretty specific. Other times, as at a parking lot, it is more general. The darker the spatter the more there is likely to be an oil stain on the ground where the engine is when the auto is parked.
Trucks, like locos also stain bridges and other overhead structures as they pass under them. this shows more on a (buff) concrete structure because of the (usually) more extreme colour difference… (assuming that many steel bridges are painted black, dark grey, Red Oxide or are one of these and crud and rust).
Frost and frost heave does horrible things to concrete… especially the older stuff before they got the basic mixes right and started with modern additives. The shards that can flake off really hurt if they hit you. At an extreme I have seen a 10’ zone cordoned off around a badly flaking structure. The building was still in use because the concrete panels that were flaking were not structural. Cars were parked outside he cordon and bits of concrete cladding lay on the messy ground with various accumulated dirt and litter.
Any flaking or breakage can expose the reinforcing bar inside concrete. This usually rots and flakes black / very dark brown scabs rather than rusting with the usual rust colours you’d see on a boxcar. I suspect that this is due to chemical reactions with the exposed concrete. The concrete may have the same colour or (strangely) more rust red stains… the difference may be between the chemical reactions going on with inside concrete and the outside stuff. Really bad concrete (especially with lime in it) sometimes never fully chemically stabilises. Just as you can get chemical burns if you handle a lot of concrete without protection you can get chemical burns from the dust created when wrecking
The principle is that our eyes see a whole bunch of stuff but our brains automatically cancel it out as normal unless there is something unusual/significant about it… but when we get into a habit of looking for detail the detail keeps popping up… used to drive my wife nuts when I stopped to take pics or make notes.
When you’re searching for the right concrete colour don’t forget that the colour will appear different to various degrees when you’ve weathered it.