DIY Concrete Mix Colors
Concrete is a versatile, inexpensive material for many projects. Concrete can be used for driveways, patios, walkways and countertops, to name a few. Adding color to your concrete is one way to make concrete even more interesting and valuable as a decorative element in and around any home. The dye is a mineral oxide available as a powder or liquid in natural tones. Mixing concrete colors yourself is easy if you follow a few guidelines.
Color
The liquids or powders available to dye concrete are actually coloring the concrete by using tiny pigment particles to cover the larger concrete particles. The tints are available in a wide range of natural colors such as terra cotta, earthen red and smokestack gray. The widest color choices are those found in nature, such as tints of reds, browns, oranges and grays. There are custom colors in blue, green and purple, but all colors are in earthy tones.
Water
Water affects the way the color particles cover the gray concrete particles. Different amounts of water between batches will result in different shades of colored concrete. The amount of water added to each batch of concrete must be the same if the color is to remain consistent. Also, water added to the concrete during finishing is just as important as water added during mixing; there are surface evaporative control agents that should be used rather than water during the concrete finishing process.
Stick to a Single Manufacturer
The original shade of the gray cement itself is also important to the resulting color once the pigment has been added. The original color of the concrete differs among manufacturers or even different batches of concrete with variations from dark gray to almost white. You must use the same manufacturer for each batch of colored concrete you mix yourself so that the concrete color will be the same after the coloring agent has been added.
Curing
Inconsistencies created by curing in regular concrete are more obvious with colored concrete, so a curing compound that matches your colored concrete will help reduce the variations created by curing. Use a curing compound that is labeled for decorative concrete so that it will not yellow or discolor tinted concrete.
Break up Large Sections With Designs
It is hard to maintain a consistent color over large sections of concrete where multiple batches of concrete are required. One technique to get around this problem is to use a design to break up colored sections of concrete because slight color differences will not be detected when they are separated by regular or differently colored concrete. Diamonds, circles or abstract ribbons of concrete can be used to create a pleasing design as well as conceal color differences in the dyed concrete that would be obvious if placed side-by-side.
Sealer
It is always a good idea to seal any concrete project once it is dried; it is even more important to seal colored concrete. Erosion from the elements and use will wear away the color particles, resulting in uneven coloring. Using a concrete sealant will slow down the erosion process and save your colored concrete.