painting lettering onto marble - which paint for outdoor durability?

If you don't get an authoritative reply here, I would be inclined to drop in to an undertakers. They may refer you to their monumental masons. You might even find they would give/sell you a small quantity.

Headstones tend to have the paint within carved lettering, though - and even then it'll flake off after a few years.

I would suggest an epoxy/polyester resin loaded with pigment and forget 'paint' as such.

A decent oil paint straight onto clean marble will be fine. As I know from trying to clean splashes off...

The Natural Philosopher wrote in news:mngkac$the$2 @news.albasani.net:

That's an option I had considered. Anyone advise where I can but a very small amount of black resin pigment?

Does anyone know of an etching primer that works on stone? I remember using some kind of yellow etching primer back in the 1980s that was supposed to work on both steel and GRP. Dunno if it would etch stone though. Thanks to all for the input.

PK

One has to becareful with Marble as some paints contain an etchant which can eat into the marble itself. Don't have any marble here this was at a place of work. Brian

"Brian-Gaff" wrote in news:mninpf$5en$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Hi Brian, I would have thought that if the paint etched itself into the marble, that would be a good thing as it would improve adhesion, but, hey, what do I know?

I found a tin of enamel paint in my garage t'other day. It is called Plasti-Kote quick-dry enamel. It's a few years old, but when I opened it, it looked as liquid and new as ever. Does anyone have any experience of that stuff? To my surprise, it turned out to be water-based. It doesn't mention that on the tin; you only find that out when you try and rinse your brush with white spirit! I've used water based gloss indoors before with no problems, but not sure if this Plasti-Kote enamel would be a good choice for my marble job. It's not quite as opaque as, say humbrol oil-based enamel. I wonder how it would stand up to a few years of sun, wind and rain.

I'm going to be engraving the lettering into the stone, prior to painting, so that will hopefully improve longevity.

PK

I'd wondered about etch primers; the usual formulation is phosphoric acid, and that will neutralise itself by dissolving some of the marble. But they are *really* designed for use on metal: you get a phosphate layer which helps to protect the steel against rusting. You won't get an analogous beneficial effect on stone. I'm with TNP that epoxies sound a good bet.