Any experience DIY tinting house paint?

[Perry Holbrook]

Been busy this month knocking out a couple dozen artsy bird houses and planters made out of a combination of concrete and fiber cement boards. Now I need to do the painting. Exterior house paint in a dozen colors in quarts is way too much paint and at $25 a quart wasteful. I'm thinking that buying a gallon of tintable concrete porch paint and a dozen tints from Mixol Universal Tints would be a better way to go. It should give me a lot of options without all the waste. Has anybody had good or bad luck tinting this kind of paint on a small scale?
Thanks

[Maurice Mcmurry]

It can certainly be done. I have a large selection of these from the craft store for similar projects.

https://www.michaels.com/product/decoart-patio-paint-outdoor-10690288?com_id=pdp_AlsoLike&path=youMayAlsoLike

https://www.michaels.com/product/outdoor-acrylic-paint-by-craft-smart-2oz-M10194027

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[Mark Wedel]

I wonder if using something like acrylic hobby paint (which comes in 2 oz containers typically) would work. I would imagine you would need to apply something on top to be weather resistant, but quick amazon search does come up with outdoor acrylic paints, though I've never used them. But if these are just needing for some artsy details, might be good enough?

The one issue of mixing your own paints (I do this sometimes for miniature painting) is that you'll probably never be able to match it again. For a bunch of different birdhouses (or minis), not really an issue, unless you run into something like you've used up the last of a mixed batch and notice one of the birdhouses is needing some touch ups.

[Bill Dufour]

Home depot used to use a good label for custom mixed paint. It showed quantity of each added color. No longer, now it is meaningless label with no useful information. I mix like one teaspoon of paint at a time until I get a good color then it can be cups at a time . I use fast food throw away spoons and dixie cups. They can be reused when dry.
I was surprised our pineapple house paint has a bit of black in it.
Delta machine gray is grey and blue. like 1/2 blue.
Find a color mixing program online to start and tweak as needed.
Bill D

[Howard Garner]

Lowes offers 1/2 pint paint samples that they will tint to order. About $5 each
Howard Garner

[Perry Holbrook]

Yeah, those paint sample jars are low sheen interior so would need a clear overcoat, which is another challenge to find one that works.

Just a quick guess, but I'll need at least a gallon total so the small acrylic ones are out. I found some outdoor acrylics in larger sizes in the past that worked ok on wooden birdhouses a few years ago, but they have gotten pricey. That's why I'm searching for a better way.

The self tint feels like it gives me many options, I just wanted to know if these online tints work like what you see them do at Home Depot.

[Bradley Gray]

I doubt you will get any strong shades self tinting. I would buy primary colors and maybe black and white to mix.

[Bill Dufour]

Play with a mixing tool like this for ideas.
Bill D.
https://trycolors.com/#google_vignette

[Jim Becker]

The "Sample" size paint from the home centers may be an alternative given small projects don't consume a lot of paint and the sample size are pretty inexpensive compared to larger containers. I've also bought quite a collection of them from the "oops" shelf in a "yuge" assortment of colors exactly for small projects and signs, etc. They were like a buck apiece or something like that from that part of the store.

[Bill George]

RustOleum sells enamel paint brush on paint , in 1/2 pints and pints… its pretty weather proof. My wrought iron fence held for 20 years or so. Bright colors and not that expensive.

[Steve Demuth]

I do this for things like barn hex sign decorations, bird houses, and outdoor furniture, but my method is probably not to your liking: I use a top-grade marine paint base, and tint with mineral based colors from Earth Pigments. You get very nice muted, earth tone colors that way, that never fade or change color.

[Curt Harms]

Transtint seems to work if you have the right color. I had some latex tinted and when I got it home it was too white, it needed a bit of yellow. Few drops of Transtint yellow and I was in business.

[Jamie Buxton]

What house painters carry is 16-oz squeeze bottles of Universal Colorant, like https://www.uspaintsupply.com/paint/cal-tint-universal-tinting-colorants/

[Perry Holbrook]

I do this for things like barn hex sign decorations, bird houses, and outdoor furniture, but my method is probably not to your liking: I use a top-grade marine paint base, and tint with mineral based colors from Earth Pigments. You get very nice muted, earth tone colors that way, that never fade or change color.
Thanks Steve, I knew this wasn't an original idea. 2 questions please. Are you using the dry pigments and is the marine paint latex or oil?

Thanks

[Steve Demuth]

Thanks Steve, I knew this wasn't an original idea. 2 questions please. Are you using the dry pigments and is the marine paint latex or oil?

Thanks

This is the paint I have mostly used: https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/marine-coatings/topside-paint. It's an oil base enamel, and pretty slow drying. Definitely something best applied outside, due to VOCs. I have also mixed the pigments with good success with Totalboat Halcyon polyurathane varnish (https://www.totalboat.com/products/halcyon-water-based-varnish). This is a water based poly, tough as nails, and much friendlier to apply. Does take a bit more of the pigment and/or multiple coats to achieve opaque color, though, and continual agitation of your mix when painting, because the water based poly doesn have sufficient viscosity to suspend the mineral pigments very well.

The pigments are dry mineral powders. I have a set of Earth Pigment's "mostly natural" ones, which have a wider color range than the pure "french clay" ones.

[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.

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[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.515742

[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.

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[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.
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