The glue or ad mix ( bonding agent) adds strength. IMHO If your projects properly cure ( stay continuously damp) for a week or two, I believe they are less likely to cracking. Also always make your projects when it is about 50o f or above. I have experienced cracking, when I made projects at lower temps. Portland cement 1pt and sand 2pts and some ad mix can be used to create a thin layer - possibly for the windows ( depending how small). You can also buy a product called vinyl concrete patch. All you add is water. It is designed for to create thin layers of cement. I recently tried a product call shapecrete . It can be purchased on line through Home Depot, or directly from manufacturer. It is thin set mix that is workable like clay - I made this Bowl . This product is a little more expensive, but if you are making small projects it may be worth a try. Mike

"brushed nickel in ... on one of these posts someone said that finish is plated" I've mentioned "plated". Almost all / options / colors / finishes / are plated. Underneath the plating is something solid. e.g. solid brass (hardware like handles) or a brass tube (the faucet body) or a strong plastic (the faucet's handspray). I used to find it confusing to read "all brass" and "chrome" in the same description. Not any more. Chrome is plated and always has been. For some people, it's considered such basic simple knowledge that it doesn't need to be stated. For some reason, it was not part of my general education and upbringing. So, I went digging for information and found that there was almost always a plated finish (on faucets and on hardware): chrome. brushed nickel, whatever other finish... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_plating "Types Decorative Decorative chrome is designed to be aesthetically pleasing and durable. Thicknesses range from 0.002 to 0.020 mil (0.00005 - 0.0005 mm), however they are usually between 0.005 and 0.010 mil (0.00013 and 0.00025 mm). The chromium plating is usually applied over bright nickel plating. Typical base materials include steel, aluminum, plastic, copper alloys, and zinc alloys.[2]" Most of the other finishes are by PVD method. Even stainless can be applied by PVD. The exception to this "finish plated onto something" is stainless hardware in general and stainless steel faucets that are stainless throughout (which are rare, and European). "Stainless" is a recipe with many ingredients; depending on the recipe it can end up looking any of an infinite number of shades: more nickel, more chrome, more silver, more white or more gray. Chrome also has color variations. It can be applied thin or thick. It can be applied on top of a layer of bright nickel plating. This changes the look. Look at chrome from a very high end manufacturer, and you will see beautiful color. -- I notice that the manufacturers of hardware and faucets almost never describe their chrome. -- some faucet manufacturers will lifetime warranty only chrome and one or two other finishes. sometimes they exempt the whole faucet from their lifetime warranty even though it's only the finish that has changed. (!). --

Unless you have some odd style of hinge, I would just replace the hinge. You can usually find hinges for less than $1 a piece. I think paint works well on some items like lights and frames. But having metal and painted (metal color)close together usually doesn't work well, too easy to notice the difference. I have used the "hammer" texture paints before and they do give a surprising amount of texture. I didn't like them in my application, but I'm sure they would do well in other applications. I was hoping the hammered paints would help hide the shimmery-metal paints "lack of depth" in the finish, but it really didn't help.

Polycrylic is fine.......... IF AND ONLY IF .....you wait 2-3 WEEKS for the paints to totally cure-thru. Feeling "dry" relative to "cured" are 2 waaaaayyyyy different things! If you trap a curing paint under a "clear-coat", you're just asking for bubbling, wrinkling, loss of adhesion, etc..... Faron