Colouring mortar

I need to do some small repairs to the front of my M-I-Ls turn of the (*) century house and I'd like them to be as unobtrusive as possible. Someone at some time in the past has done some mortar repairs and then painted them with "brick coloured" paint. They look horrid.

Is it possible to colour some mortar to get a better match? Possibly with ground up brick? (I have a couple of broken-off pieces.)

(* previous. IOW, it's about 1900)

Reply to
Huge
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Next door had their boiler moved, which required making a new flue hole and filling in the old one. The brickie saved the brick dust from drilling the new hole. I didn't see in detail what he did, but the neighbour said he filled the old hole with mortar, and then blew the brick dust into the surface of it, polished it off with a trowel, and then cut pointing into it where the original brick boundaries would have been. It's invisible unless you know exactly where it was.

Mortar dyes are available, but if you want brick colour and have bricks spare, that's probably going to be a better match. Mortar dyes are mixed into the mortar, but real brick colour would never match after mixing with mortar, so you probably need to use the trick of blowing it into the mortar surface. I don't know if it was just done with wet mortar, or if some glue was used too.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Arty shop. Powder paints. Mix any colour you like!

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Got to beware of fading. Our pavers have changed quite considerably since they were laid a couple of years ago. Thankfully, we knew they would and chose with that in mind. I doubt other pigments/dyes are much more stable unless, as you yourself suggested, they are brick dust or similar.

Reply to
Rod

Cracking. I shall try that, thanks!

Reply to
Huge

Red bricks are red because of iron oxide. Red cement dye is iron oxide, and permanent and stable. Other cement dye colours fade and streak. So you can use red cement dye or brick dust, either is fine. You should be using lime mortar of course.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

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