Self-crushed stone painting technology

Decorative work in the air in the form of garden decoration, laying out paving paths, flower beds can be made using such popular material as colored gravel. It has an almost unlimited color gamut (like the paint itself), so it allows you to carry out any design ideas. But in construction stores such material will cost 2-3 times more than its unpainted counterpart, so the question arises, how to paint the rubble yourself?

Content:

• Range of applications
• Choose a tool for painting
• Equipment required
• Preparation of stone before painting
• The process of creating colored crushed stone
• Another way to stain

Range of applications

The demand for this material is due to the fact that with its help it is possible to achieve a more vivid and stylish design of the house area, as well as create whole pictures-messages that reflect some kind of idea. Apply colored crushed stone for the following purposes:

• creation of original flower beds and lawns;
• registration of sites around artificial reservoirs;
• landscape work;
• filling terrariums and aquariums (small gravel).

Choose a tool for painting

In the conditions when you plan to carry out small finishing work, you are not advisable to purchase a large number of building materials, therefore it is better to make crushed stone in color with your own hands, measuring as much stone as you need for the task.

The good news for many will be that production technology is simple, and consumption paints for stone small - for 100 kg of crushed stone, only 1 kg of paint is taken. This rule applies if you intend to paint in a concrete mixer, and with other methods, consumption increases.

For the implementation of the task, you can use any coloring compounds: alkyd paints, water dispersible, enamels, sometimes they even take PVA glue mixed with dye. But the most favorable option for this purpose is acrylic paint.

This is due to the fact that you need a stable substance to moisture, as well as not fading in the sun, able to hold color for a long time. This is how the above paint is characterized, but besides this it is also harmless, both for humans and for nature.

Equipment required

In order for the entire staining procedure to go quickly and without hesitation, you will need the following devices:

• concrete mixer;
• screening machine - vibrating screen;
• grate or sieve for washing or drying;
• pallet;
• container for storing finished material.

Preparation of stone before painting

Buying crushed stone, you get a heterogeneous composition, the size of each stone can range from 10 to 30 mm. There are also smaller fractions that are more suitable for interior decoration. Therefore, packaging by size is necessary.

This can be done manually on a sieve with the desired mesh size, or, which is faster and easier, use a “rattle” machine. Any of the above technologies provides for the separation of excess litter, too small pebbles, sand.

But in order for acrylic paint to hold well, crushed stone must also be washed. This will provide better adhesion of the dye to the surface of the stone and will allow you to create exactly the shade that you want, because if not washed, the stone can darken.

You can wash directly on the screen, pouring from a hose or water from a bucket. Due to the fact that the machine creates shaking, cleaning will take place from all sides. After that, lay the washed mass in a uniform layer on the grate and carry out drying in the open air.

The process of creating colored crushed stone

There are only one ways to paint crushed stone, moreover, it is almost automatic, since your participation in the main process will be minimal. The most efficient and time-saving technology involves the use of a concrete mixer. After you have properly prepared all the components, you can proceed to the painting itself, which consists of several stages:

1. Crushed stone needs to be placed in a concrete mixer two-thirds of the machine’s volume (if the capacity is 0.7 cubic meters).
2. Pour paint in a ratio of 30 percent to 70 percent of the stone.
3. Start the mechanism and wait 40-60 minutes until the stone is completely covered with a colored layer.
4. At the end of the “kneading”, drying follows - put everything on a grid, substituting a pallet under the bottom, where the remaining paint will run off.

It is not advisable to store dried colored crushed stone in the open air, it is better to use a closed container.

For protection against external influences use is possible stone varnish. This will give the material an additional decorative effect.

Another way to stain

If there is no concrete mixer in your access, then it will be more difficult to create a painted crushed stone, but it is possible - you will have to fill a stone in a container with paint and mix it yourself, and then dry the crushed stone.

Or simply spray on a stone with aerosol paint, but this method does not give a uniform color and uniform staining on all sides.

Making your own painted crushed stone for finishing park areas or a site near a house is much cheaper than buying a finished product: for unpainted goods you will give a thousand rubles, while colored ones cost over 20 thousand. Given such savings and extremely logical production technology, the idea of ​​making do-it-yourself crushed stone for decoration is rationally determined.