Any experience DIY tinting house paint?

[Perry Holbrook]

Thanks Steve, great info.

[Steve Demuth]

This is a bird house that I made for my daughter for Christmas this year, from a gourd she grew almost forty years ago when she was about five, and which somehow managed to survive decades of storage in the shop rafters without any rodent damage. This was done with Earth Pigments and Marine paint for the yellow ground color, and Earth Pgments plus Totalboat Halcyon for the decoration, with about 7 coats of the Halcyon clear over the top.

Bird House 1.jpgBird House 2.jpg

[Perry Holbrook]

Just wanted to give an update for anyone interested. Turns out you can DIY paint tinting but it is not completely straight forward. Here's what I learned. The pigment powders must first be dissolved in a binder, Floetrol worked for me. To get deep color you mix into a Base 4 or Ultra Deep base. You can lighten with a small amount of premixed white paint. After making the primary base colors, they can be mixed to give a wide range of other colors.

Here's one of the concrete bird houses after painting.Bird House 3 piece.JPG

[Steve Demuth]

Very nice. How do you mold thin-shell concrete sphere?

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Thats a neat little birdhouse! The colors are great. The store brand paint at Payless Cashways home stores used a powder base tinting system. I think it was Glidden brand. Their paint was notoriously difficult to mix. Little dry globs of pigment resisted devolving and were nearly impossible to mix in.
Is the green part a perch or a awning? It is super cute that it looks good either way.

Screen Shot 2024-02-20 at 7.44.31 AM.jpeg Screen Shot 2024-02-20 at 7.44.31 AM 2.jpeg

[Perry Holbrook]

Before I figured out the paint I had to figure out playing with concrete. Lots of you tube searches but nothing on exactly this. The trick is using fabric, I used a heavy blanket, as a sort of armature. Soak the fabric is water/cement mixture and form it into the desired shape. After that dries, use a base stucco mix in layers to build up strength. To make them durable in weather, I treated with Dryloc and then the paint. I'll put a concrete sealer on them after they are mounted on poles. Should have a 10-15 year life span easily.

I also make some concrete planters while I was at it. Not the best picture,sorry.
Planters.JPG