My client wants to use a brick stain from a company called Nawkaw. The plan is to stain all the existing light-colored bricks of various buildings on campus to a similar color.
Doe anyone have experience with this stain?
About 20 years ago, a shipment of brick didn’t quite match the others on a large office complex project in Centerville, Ohio. It was put up before anyone noticed the difference. Nawcaw came out and tinted the deviant brick to match the rest of the building. To this day, I can’t tell exactly where on the building the brick was stained.
Since then, I have called up Nawcaw for several projects. Sometimes getting older patched areas to blend in, and once to simulate brick on a concrete wall to match an adjacent brick building. You have to be right up next to it to tell it isn’t brick.
The key to the use of this system is to get an applicator who has a keen eye and enough experience to know how it will come out in the end.
I spec’d NECT-90 emulsion color treatment by Nawkaw on an historic bldg to stain existing replacement bricks and mortar so they would match appearance of original brickwork. As I recall, the product was recommended by a preservation consultant. I didn’t see it myself, but understand that the result was satisfactory.
I’ve used it on several projects and have had good experience with it. Require mockups. As Richard noted, the wild card is the applicator; the product seems to be pretty consistent.
Similar experience, but with concrete masonry. We had a pallet of concrete brick that was off-color from the rest on a library project. Still matches after twenty years.
And yes, I realize clay masonry is different than concrete… just adding another thumbs up for the manufacturer.
I have used them a couple of times with great success. Make sure you have a good applicator and the mockup meets your expectations. They will mix as much as needed to meet your requirements.
Thank you for your comments. I feel more confident specifying those products. Yes I will require a mock-up and trained/experienced applicators!
I asked local architects and specifiers around here and nobody had heard of “brick stain”. This is probably due to the fact that we have so few brick buildings in the Pacific Northwest.
I would echo everyone else’s sentiments on Nawkaw and I would go one further by saying allowing for equal products might not be in your best interest.
I realize that you might want (or need) to offer 3 options if there is public money involved but in my experience Nawkaw is without established competitors.
This is one instance where I would single source the product if at all possible because I don’t know of any equals. There may be some but none that I have found.
Another product I’ve seen used successfully is Canyon Tone from United Coatings.
It was used on a county circuit courthouse here in Chicago, to stain two different, old Chicago brick on existing building portion to match coloration of clay tile rainscreen cladding (Moeding, I believe) on new portion/expansion.
Nawkaw was the other company specified.
Scott,
I write a lot of specifications for public work and do list 3 to 5 acceptable manufacturers. In this case, since brick stain is a bit unusual, I will specify it as open proprietary. I will let the contractor prove they have a competitive product.
David,
I would agree that this is an instance where a proprietary spec is warranted.
Richard noted Canyon Tone and I have used then in the past for concrete stain on precast panels with good luck so they may be a good alternative. I do not know much about their brick stains so I can not say for sure.
There are other companies who stain brick, but haven’t been in business as long as Nawkaw. We (BIA) have contributing associate members who do color correction and can be found on our website under “Find Brick & Materials”. The only company we have listed right now is Masonry Cosmetics, Inc. (www.masonrycosmetics.com). You can decide whether to list them as alternates to Nawkaw.