victorian lime mortar

paulroberts

Why is Victorian lime mortar a dark gray colour? and lime you buy today is white.
I need it to be a dark gray to match the existing mortar

brightontraveller

Matching old to new lime mortar is a lot of faffing around.
Also new may not age the same as the old even after it looking the same to start ? With color you tend to get into realms of strength, texture, durability etc loads of faff .
These do it for you to an extent
http://www.thelimecentre.co.uk/mortar-analysis-and-colour-matching.htm
A more Diy way
http://www.askthebuilder.com/matching-mortar/
Sometimes replacing all the mortar on for example a wall is quicker easier cheaper than trying to match everything with existing ?

JohnB47

From my experience, avoid builders who say "no problem, we can match that mortar colour". Then they use the sand common to your area (brown/orange sand common in my area) and mix in a bit of lime. It doesn't work - all you get is a slightly greyer brown mortar.


To my mind (no expert here) it needs a grey sand and lime mix to get close to the original colour. But some builders only want to use the sand available in their area.


So if you're not doing it yourself you need to be very specific about the materials to be used and check them before they start work.

Gloomendoom

I have problems matching lime mortar. I find it hit and miss. I did a couple of jobs on my house two weeks apart using the same lime putty and sand. One matches the existing mortar perfectly and the other has dried far too light. Mixing in a bit of the local clay seems to get a closer match, usually. I have used powdered poster paint in the past.

casper_g

If it's very dark there could have been black ash added to the mix. The main down side is it eats wall ties, but if your house is Victorian it most likely doesn't have any!

teamgb

Tilcon do a range of coloured mortar. In my day they would supply a sample bag and we would build a brick panel to check that the client was happy.

FreeBear

teamgb wrote: »

Tilcon do a range of coloured mortar.

Ah, but are Tilcon mortars cement or lime based ?

if the former, then it will be of little use to the OP. He would be far better off going to a specialist supplier (the one I use is Mike Wye) who can offer a colour matching service.

I've been doing some fancy plasterwork recently in lime, and have had need to mix a few batches with a bit of colour. Pure carbon black pigment from an artists supplier gave me a charcoal grey, and ultramarine blue is on the cards for Jan. Reds & yellows later in the year.

A dash of carbon black may well do the job for the OP - No more than 5% by weight of lime putty. It should mask the colour of any sand used. But be warned, it will dry to a paler shade of grey than when first mixed, so you will want to experiment a bit with sand/lime/pigment ratios.

paulroberts

I doesn't need to match I just want it to be a dark gray colour like cement.
NHL5 what colour would that dry i am having the whole chimney stack repointed.

marc81

Could it be dyed? We are in the middle of having some work done and our builder couldn't get the same shade of brown so has added a dye which looks spot on. It's not lime though so don't know if you could achieve the same.

jimbo_the_jetset

http://www.lime-mortars.co.uk/lime-mortar?gclid=Cj0KEQiAkO7CBRDeqJ_ahuiPrtEBEiQAbYupJd70Dh9tqmELdvfDZy5dTaAAH3Qjta91yVIP8GwGrhMaAtKC8P8HAQ

Different colour shades here?