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Concrete colour


Angie
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We are laying quite a long concrete pathway in the garden and was hoping for a very light grey or creamy colour finish as is currently at the front of the house (done by someone else a while ago).  We have already laid the "rough" base but the colour of the cement is very dark grey (almost black).  I know the builders merchant had several varieties of cement - can anyone suggest a "brand" that produces this light grey colour?  We have tried different ratios and the result is always the same.  Don't really want the expense of a concrete colouring pigment.  Thanks all.
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I agree, the sand will make a big difference.

For concrete or mortar which shows I usually use cimet blanc and sable a maconner which, when lightly washed down before it's gone off, produces a quite authentic 'old looking' finish. Problem is cimet blanc is rather pricy but I bought a job lot from my local Brico for about €7/bag.

[img]http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p123/biskitboyo/Img_1938.jpg[/img]

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Thanks so much for all these suggestions. Hadn't thought that the sand might be the problem.  Yes, it is quite a dark colour.  Don't mind paying extra for the better quality (lighter) cement as I would prefer it looked more natural and yes, hopefully, we are only going to do it once!!  As always, your advice is much appreciated.
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  • 1 month later...
If you want coloured cement you need to add pigment to the mix. End of. It isn't that expensive if you shop around. Gauge the mixes so you don't end up with dark or light patches. It pays to mix a couple of small mixes in a bucket and lay them somewhere to cure  to check you are happy with the strenghth of the colour, bear in mind it will fade rapidly in the first few months.
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We recently laid a concrete path in our external wood store. To lighten the interior we also wanted a lighter colour so went down the white cement and soft sand route, but just for the top inch or so. We did the path in bays, with the usual trellis steel inside. About 4 inches deep, we did the first 3 in normal sharp sand/gravel then when still wet mixed and laid a softer sand and the white cement mix to give a creamier colour. It certainly kept the cost down. We also made a mock sandstone wall base by mixing the white cement I had left with two different types of sand. The results of both experiments have been very satisfactory. Its over wintered here in Normandy with no separation problems.
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If you are going to use powdered pigments it is better to use white rather than grey Portland cement, otherwise you will use loads of pigment and perhaps never get the colour that you are looking for unless its grey of course, as an aside of all the pigments I have used its the black I used to make grey that is the only one not to fade, ............. Yet!!

I suppose the same advice could be applied to the colour of the sand but normally we dont have a lot of choice, if its for a small area then sable fin pou carrelage is a very pale colour and takes tints very well, its also the only affordable choice in France for jointing block paving (after it has been spread out to dry), the price of sable polymer will make your eyes pop out [:-))]

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  • 2 weeks later...

Back in the day I made up a 'open box' out of plywood roughly the size of a cobble and to it I joined a couple of other 'boxes' I then pinned round electrical flex to the edges. When laying concrete I hand cast cement dyes and overlaid the tamped concrete with a sheet of thin plastic membrane and then used my 'boxes' to imprint the finish. I was very pleasantly surprised with the finish I got in a reinforced concrete 'cobble' driveway.

Oh I know it's a digression but some may want to try it and of course I am demonstrating a potential cheaper way to use dyes more cheaply.

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