More Shades of Black (and a Lesson in Fractions)

The saga of black continues...

We have now painted about half of the windows in the house black. Thankfully we both love the General Paint Black Bear shade we chose.

However we weren't so lucky when it came to the shade of black for the concrete sealer for the new patio in the backyard.

Like we did last year on the patio in the front yard, we wanted to use a lightly tinted concrete sealer to accentuate the stone stamp pattern. Unfortunately the product we used last year was no longer available.

So Dave purchased a 5 gallon pail of clear concrete sealer from Northland and, at the recommendation of store, took it to Benjamin Moore to be tinted. He told the attendant that he wanted the sealer to be "barely black" so she agreed to only add a "half of a half" of the tint they would normally add - or a 1/4 for anyone good at math...

Dave took it home and promtly began to seal the concrete only to find that the "barely black" tint was very, very black.

Very Black

At least he was smart enough to test the colour where we will eventually be building a shed to house our bikes.

The next day Dave returned to Northland to buy a second 5 gallon pail of clear concrete sealer to which he added 6 cups of the black sealer from the previous day. Once again we did a test patch in a conconspicuous spot and thankfully this time the sealer was "barely black". Just black enough to highlight the texture in the concrete.

Barely Black

For those who are still folllowing the math, we diluted the tint to less than 1/10 of the 1/4 strength tint she originally sold us. That is 2/100 of the normal amount of tint they use. Something tells me she tought she was tinting paint and not concrete sealer...

Very Black on Left, Barely Black of Right

So anyways... we now have a beautifully sealed patio, 3 gallons of 2/100 strength black concrete sealer and 4.5 gallons of 1/4 strength black concrete sealer.

Anyone need some black concrete sealer?

Amy

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