Create an Old Chippy Weathered Finish

Using Fusion’s Crackle Medium

 

 

I wanted to create an aged, weathered, chippy look on a cabinet door. I want my finished product to look like it has been around for many years, has layers of paint and an authentic chippy look.

 

 

I started with this list of items:

1. Fusion’s Crackle Medium
2. Cabinet door
3. Fusion’s Pebble gray
4. Putty spatula

 

 

                                     

I applied Fusion’s Crackle Medium to this cabinet board. I poured the medium on the surface and used a putty knife/spatula to gently spread it where needed.The crackle medium is applied to your substrate before you paint. It is a white liquid that will crack once dried. It takes about. 12 hours to dry. (2nd picture) If applied in a thin coat, you will get small cracks. If you apply a thick coat, you get larger cracking on your piece.

Apply Crackle Medium to Substrate

 

The picture shows the crackle medium applied to the substrate (door) and allowed to dry for 12 hours.

As you can see, larger cracking takes place is areas where the crackle medium was applied thick. The small cracks are in areas where the medium was applied a bit thinner. The strokes made to spread the medium are still visible. if you don’t want strokes to appear, while the medium is wet you can tap the board on a hard surface and allow gravity to smooth it out.

Try not to over work the medium, this will reduce the amount of cracking you will get in the dried product.

 

 

Apply layer of paint

The next step is to apply your paint directly over your dried Crackle medium.

 

 

 

 

 

Sand back if desired

The picture shows a close up of Pebble painted over the crackle medium. Above the black line, the Pebble is painted on and has not been sanded back. Below the black line, the Pebble has been sanded. Once the paint is dry, use a 220 grit sanding pad to sand back the Pebble to reveal the white underlying surface. Sanding the paint back creates a multi layer look that has had years of wear. 

 

Fusion’s Crackle Medium

This product is easy to use. You pour it on, spread it and allow it to dry. Once dry, you paint over the product. The product should not be mixed with the paint. If mixed with the paint, it will not crack. If you want to add more layers, simply paint over the Pebble with another color. You can always add a paint resist (hemp oil, beeswax, salad bowl finish)to random areas between layers of paint. The paint resist allows you to easily sand back to reveal the underlying color. When using no paint resist, often sanding becomes difficult and you may sand through all layers of paint.

The crackle medium, once dry, is solid and will not chip or fall off. The crackle medium adheres well to the substrate. I would recommend Crackle Medium for smaller projects or smaller areas of a larger project in which you want to create an authentic weathered, chippy finish. When using this product on a larger product, you may need two or more bottles of product. The price point is great so even a larger project is easy to achieve with this product.