This is just a brief article to get your creative thinking going. I am the type of person that likes to construct things that are unique, things that people just do not see everyday, things that people take a look at and think, “Well there’s something you do not see everyday”.
This is not done for praise, but rather I like people to appreciate the finished effect and hopefully get ideas from what I have done to go and build something that is unique for them and that they can enjoy. So with that said, I would like to talk about using paint in your pond.
If I have said it once, I have said it a million times. You cannot just put paint on your concrete pond and expect it to stick. Yep, but here I am talking to you about painting your pond. Well there is a way to do it.
First consider what you plan to do with the paint. Are you going to put some sort of mural down in the pond? Are you going to paint it in a fashion that makes the bottom of the pond blend in with the natural surroundings? I have seen golf courses put logos and such in the bottoms of their ponds.
So, if paint does not stick to concrete very well, how are you going to paint the pond and get any sort of life expectancy out of it? That’s pretty simple. You will end up sandwiching it between two coats of Pond Shield epoxy.
You prepare the surface for the first coat of Pond Shield epoxy and then let it cure for at least 24 hours. If you plan to paint the entire surface, you can almost use any color of Pond Shield epoxy that you want. If you want to maintain any natural rock for example you may want to use clear as your first coat.
After the first coat has cured for 24 hours, it can be sanded to give the surface some tooth for the paint to stick to. What you use to paint the surface now will be a very important choice. The first kind of paint that probably pops into your head would be latex paint.
Latex paint would probably be the worst choice in my opinion. The problem is not how well it would stick to Pond Shield epoxy, but how well Pond Shield epoxy would stick to it. This is because in attempting to prepare a latex surface for the purpose of sticking epoxy to it, you may inadvertently destroy the latex finish you have created.
Think about what the latex might look like if you accidentally sanded through it, especially if you have just finished a nice faux look to the paint job. Trying to touch that up and make it blend properly can be very difficult to say the least.
You might even consider an exterior oil based paint. While these pains are pretty good and can be prepared easier than latex, the real problem comes from how they cure. Oil based pains have quite a bit of solvent material in them and it is the evaporation of this solvent that acts as the drying method for the paint.
When oil based paints dry, they tend to shrink. This shrinking, not to mention solvent release can cause issues later when the project is complete.
So if this is something you really want to consider, I would recommend that you use an automotive type of paint; either an acrylic, enamel or a polyurethane. Any of these types of paints are made to stick to other plastic surfaces too.
The trick will be this. You will need to apply the paint to the prepared Pond Shield epoxy and if the painted surface is small enough apply Pond Shield clear over the top just after the paint has flashed. By flashed, I mean when the paint has just cured enough to be hard but still susceptible to having a coating applied over top of it without sanding. This flash time will be described in the instructions for the paint you purchased.
Now, if you surface area is large and you are forced to sand, sanding an automotive paint is pretty easy. It’s harder than a latex type of paint so the likelihood of you sanding through is a lot less, especially if you’re careful. Just sand it and then wipe it clean and the surface will be ready for the top coat of Pond Shield clear epoxy.
So that’s basically all there is to it. If you do not know where to get automotive paint, just call a local auto body shop and ask them. Usually there are one or two automotive paint stores in any given town or at least in a town close to you.
Remember to think out of the box here. There’s a lot you can do with paint as long as you do it correctly. You need a base coat of Pond Shield epoxy, then the paint and finally a top coat of Pond Shield epoxy clear.
