Paint for aged concrete

[FRRYKid]

FWIW a couple of subs are as follows (from charts I have):

Vallejo 70.976

or

Vallejo 71.143 (pre-thinned for air brush)

I have not verified these myself.

[richhotrain]

This old thread isn't the only one looking for substitutes for Pollyscale Aged Concrete. There are several old threads out there. Here is a somewhat more recent one.

https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/p/260441/3313498.aspx#3313498

Another option is Woodland Scenics Concrete. It is a fairly close match to other Aged Concrete paints. $6.00 or so for a 6 ounce bottle.

Rich

[doctorwayne]

I'm a longtime fan of Pollyscale, and wish that someone would revive the formulae for making it, as it was far better than most of what's available nowadays.
I often altered the Concrete or Aged Concrete colours to suit, depending on what structures I was building.  Here are a few...

Wayne

[GARY W ROHRER]

The "stone grey" is made by Vallejo. It's pretty good stuff but (too) prefer Poly Scale.

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if sand paper and other coarse materials are a good way. Nowadays coated plywood is used as concrete formwork. The cement paste covers all aggregates and forms a smooth surface. If wood boards are used as formwork you likely see the wood grain but no aggregates. When you have defects in the concrete cover you might see single pieces of gravel.

There are exceptions. Exposed-aggregate concrete is sometimes used for  architectural reasons.

Steve's excample looks like sandblasted concrete, used for architectural reasons too.
Regards, Volker (Germany)

[NVSRR]

These are some great ideas for concrete.  Sand paper molds. Depron  foam.      As for color. Aged concrete can be beige  colors to light tans.    even some cream.colors will work.  New Crete is almost white. Like Polly scale undercuts grey which is almost white  to darker greys.   a wide range.  It gives the ability to make a lot of variation.   around water, browns come.into.play.    having worked with concrete for years,  there is now no incorrect color. Concrete can even be tinted nowadays.  

Shane

[7fdl]

Steven S

I'm bumping this up because I finally got around to testing something I've been wanting to try.  In my above post, the two plaster pieces were made using a mold made from Depron foam like this one.  The texture is a bit rough for HO, but would work for O.  So I tried using some waterproof sandpaper and the results are much better suited to HO scale. 

(click to enlarge)

 

You could also use this for retaining walls and even make concrete walls for buildings with it. Glue squares and rectangles of foam to the sandpaper where the windows and doors would be and pour plaster around them. The sheets of sandpaper are 11" x 9", so you could make a fairly large wall.
I keep wanting to build a CNC machine. It would be fun to try engraving a brick pattern into plaster slabs like this. You could do custom brickwork.

 

Steve S

 

 

Hi Steve,

Your ideas about using foam molds and plaster castings to create retaining walls are very interesting and innovative --    but I have to ask, why not just simply use some thin foam to create the retaining walls themselves?

You might need to provide a styrene sheet backing to stiffen up such a foam wall, but that approach seems easier and cheaper than creating molds and using potentially costly plaster material to achieve essentially the same result.

The foam itself provides a nice texture to replicate ho scale 'concrete' and with the right kind of paint to cover it over, nobody would even guess what it really was?

Your thoughts?

Jonas

 

[7fdl]

is it ok if i bump this interesting thread?

[zstripe]

Take a look around where you live and what part of the World You live and what Era you would like to Model, not all aged concrete is the same color. What is sold is a rough generalization of what it looks like.  Concrete from the 30's up even before, does not look the same, more Beige than gray.

Aged concrete abutment, from the Midwest:

 

 

 

Frank

[GP-9_Man11786]

I've used Testors "Flat Light Aircraft Gray" for concrete in the past. I use and India ink wash to give it an aged look. I used the color on the base of this signal bridge:

 

[Steven S]

I'm bumping this up because I finally got around to testing something I've been wanting to try.  In my above post, the two plaster pieces were made using a mold made from Depron foam like this one.  The texture is a bit rough for HO, but would work for O.  So I tried using some waterproof sandpaper and the results are much better suited to HO scale. 

(click to enlarge)

 

You could also use this for retaining walls and even make concrete walls for buildings with it. Glue squares and rectangles of foam to the sandpaper where the windows and doors would be and pour plaster around them. The sheets of sandpaper are 11" x 9", so you could make a fairly large wall.
I keep wanting to build a CNC machine. It would be fun to try engraving a brick pattern into plaster slabs like this. You could do custom brickwork.

 

Steve S

[Phoebe Vet]

Mark R.

I've built a lot of concrete structures - from coal towers to bridge abutments - and needed a lot of base concrete color. My solution was to take my favorite base color (Floquil Aged Concrete) to the local paint store and had them mix me a quart of flat latex paint to match it. 

Flat latex paint works surprisingly well on everything from styrene to plaster. I've even had success in thinning it and airbrushing it. The quart of paint cost about a much as two bottles of Floquil !

Mark.

 

I did the same thing at Lowes.

[RDG1519]

Steve,

You have done it again. First you posted the idea of using the thin foam sheets from Hobby Lobby or the other one. Now this interesting paint approach. It is why I love this forum. The ideas just keep on coming.

Thanks!!

Chris

[Mark R.]

I've built a lot of concrete structures - from coal towers to bridge abutments - and needed a lot of base concrete color. My solution was to take my favorite base color (Floquil Aged Concrete) to the local paint store and had them mix me a quart of flat latex paint to match it. 

Flat latex paint works surprisingly well on everything from styrene to plaster. I've even had success in thinning it and airbrushing it. The quart of paint cost about a much as two bottles of Floquil !

Mark.

[Steven S]

Concrete isn't a single color.  I use a technique I call speckle painting.  First paint a base color of white or off-white (bone or eggshell.)  If you're using plaster there's no need to paint a base coat. 

Then I cover the floor of the workshop with newspaper and lay the concrete parts on it.  I hold a couple of cans of spray paint about four feet above the floor and give a few bursts of each.  The particles will settle on the parts giving them a speckled look.  I use a couple of shades of brown (Valspar Sagebrush and Krylon Brown Boots) or something similar.  Avoid very dark browns.

Then I dunk everything in a wash of alcohol and India ink.

 

This is Depron foam...

 

 

This is plaster with various amounts of paint and weathering...

 

 

Steve S

 

[wp8thsub]

I like Testors Camouflage Gray.

Much of this cement plant was painted with the Camouflage Gray.  Other parts were a color called "Stone Gray" that I found at a craft store, but I forget the brand for that.  It had a semi-gloss finish so it requred oversprays of clear flat.  I've also used the Testors color for sidewalks and other concrete.

[dknelson]

I have used Tamiya rattle can paints where I spray two colors at the same time, creating a varied and blended look that I think is convincing.  The two colors that work best for concrete are TS-68 Wooden Deck Tan or AS-15Tan (USAF) PLUS  AS-16 Light Gray (USAF).   It takes some practice.

Dave Nelson

[billslake]

I should add that I want to use the paint for sidewalks and roads.

[jrbernier]

  Micro-Mark has released their MicroLux line of acrylic paints that they claim are color matched to the old Floquil Pollyscale line.  They do have an 'Aged Concrete' in the line:

http://www.micromark.com/microlux-acrylic-paint-aged-concrete-2-ounces,11278.html

Jim

[billslake]

I always liked the Polly S Aged Concrete paint . . . thought it looked pretty darn good.  Has anyone found a good replacement now that the Polly S color has gone to that great big paint bucket up in the sky?