Gold & Bronze Crocodile Print Bar Top

A bar top in crocodile print, finished in gold and bronze.

The top was laid up first in a microcement fine — a fine-grained cement finish that stays workable for a while after it goes on. Instead of trowelling it flat we worked the crocodile print into it while it was still open, running the scales along the length of the bar and round the corner of the L so the pattern carries through rather than stopping at the join.

Once it had set the colour went on in metallic paints, gold with bronze pulled through it in bands and left darker in places, which is what gives it the aged look. The raised scales catch the light and the recesses stay dark, so the top shifts as you walk along it — bright gold at one end, closer to old bronze at the other.

There are shots further down of the bar at base coat stage, plain grey and flat, before any of the texture or the colour went near it. Microcement is normally used as a smooth, quiet surface, so a crocodile skin worked into it with metallic paint over the top is an unusual thing to do with it.