Take a look at these pics and let me know what you think. Keep in mind this slab is almost 100yrs old and the concrete was every poor quality.

http://picasaweb.google.com/DGMarbleguy/StainedPolished100yrOldConcreteFloor?authkey=FeA6FzdM1ho

David Gelinas
Marbleguy

Quality work!!!

Wow! David that looks great. Whats the cost of your class? lol

But seriously what is the cost?

If i was to make this terrazzo flooring in the lobby of my account look like that, I would be set apart from others for a good 2 years at least before i would have to renew his impressive outlook on me.

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

A sign of the times!

Hi Alex

I’m glad you liked that floor, as for the cost of our class it’s only $650.00 for a 3 day class. There are others that cost as much as $1,800.00 for 2 days but only cover a third of what we cover in our class. The challenge for us in putting a class together is the cost we incur at our end and to have a suitable site. As for the site we are currently lining one up for our next class but it’s not finalized yet. As for our production cost of the class if we know beforehand what kind of attendance we’ll have we can plan accordingly. Our first class we had 13 or 15 students; they loved it and thought it was great. Our second class we only had 3 students; they also thought it was great and we added another day to it making it three days. Maybe the ticket is making it two days at $650.00; I don’t know. Either way I’m glad you liked that floor. In the class we talk briefly about concrete and explain it all but we focus mostly on stone, normally travertine because that’s the most predominant stone you’ll find and pretty much all of the same principals apply.

David Gelinas
Marbleguy

That looks great David, when you say cimex is that the cr-48 19 regular carpet cleaning cimex ?

What would be the cost of a job like that.
I sent you a email about a cement floor i'm looking at

Carpet Cleaning Wilson North Carolina

"....thats probably one of the greatest floors ever"

"yessssss"



Patrick

Dave , I'm glad you posted these pictures, as the link you sent me earlier didn't work. The floor looks great! Especially when you consider the age and how soft it was. You densified/hardened with Lithium? Then at least the top layer is 300-400 % harder.
Craig

How much stuff do I need to start doing this? The class is $650, what else do I need? How much for a job like this? Wow is that impressive!

Please email if you do not want to post the answers here.
Thanks

Darren

I'd like to know as well.

Oh boy . . . where do I start . . . lets see; first you need more gumption than sense, then after that it’s all pretty easy.

What you’re looking at for those that are new to polished concrete is a very close cousin to stone restoration, a very close cousin. There are a couple of differences though and for the most part in a lot of ways it easer than stone care. Either way you’re gonna need a way to cut the concrete/stone. For that you have two options; 1) a “fairly standard” weighted swing machine (As for production you might liken the difference to encapping CGD with a slow machine & trigger sprayer and me cleaning it with my CR48 DF Cimex) or option 2) a planetary head machine (We’ll be going w/ a Cimex here for obvious reasons and not so obvious reasons. The obvious reasons I think are, well, obvious. The not so obvious is that the Cimex (even the CR48 DF) is less expensive to buy and much easer to use than the next closest option. Using a mono rotating machine (swing machine) at 175RPMs with 130-150lbs compared to 880 RPMs with the ability to run more than 300lbs of head weight, the difference is pretty clear. In addition to that when you’re using a swing machine it is very difficult to get a consistent scratch pattern yet it is very easy to “scallop” the surface by digging the edge on the machine in. I big challenge/concern in both instances is get a very, very consistent scratch pattern.

In a nut shell you need to work your way through varying diamond grits until you get to the desired level of “polish”. Now that level of polish can be from a very low “dead” hone with little if any reflectivity, up to a very high wet look type shine. Many times when I’m explaining the process to a client I’ll use the illustration of buying an antique dresser at an estate sale, bringing it home, putting it the garage and sanding it with various grits of sand paper. You start with a course grit and work your way through to finer and finer grits until you have it where you want it. The same pretty much goes for concrete/stone work.

During the process, on concrete, you’ll want to do what Craig referenced earlier; its called densifing. This is a process of using a special product that literally makes the top surface of the concrete harder than it would be naturally. Different products work slightly differently and some may go in slightly deeper than others. In the end what you’re trying to achieve is to get the surface as hard and durable as possible. While “harder” is more durable, harder concrete will also give you a better/higher shine. Most of the time it’s best to have concrete with a compressive strength of 4,000 PSI. If you want exposed aggregate (those tiny white rocks inside the concrete) it makes it easer to get to the aggregate if the PSI is around 3,000 PSI.

You might also want to add color to the floor as in the job we just completed. Again, different products/manufacturers might be applied at different times. On that job we dyed the concrete between our using a 400 grit diamond and an 800 grit diamond. Notice I said dyed, you can also stain the concrete as well. In my opinion it’s just semantics but according to the manufacturers there is a difference. There is also a difference if you are using a product that is water based, solvent based or acid based. Each has their pros and cons. This particular job was done with a solvent based dye.

Once you’ve gotten the floor to the color you want and to the level of shine that you want you now need to protect it. There is not enough ink and paper (remember when we used that stuff) for me to get into the differences between topical products but I myself am a very big proponent of penetrating products and leaving the surface as close to a “natural polish” as possible. I’m using the term “natural polish” in the context of getting the concrete as close to the surface of stone as possible. It is a very big no no to ever put anything down, i.e. floor finish, on natural stone. I feel the same should be true for polished concrete. Another big no no for stone is to do something often called crystallization or calcification; but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

For equipment you’ll need; a means to cut the floor (a Cimex), a way to pick up the slurry (a HP porty (((KleenRite’s Horizon works nicely for this because of its powerful vacuum as well as its auto fill and auto dump features, two very important thins considering the amount of water you go through))) or wet vac), a hand grinder for edges and your diamond abrasives as well as your chemistry of choice. There is also another option for picking up the concrete slurry – actually doing your cutting dry and using a special vac system to pick up the powder ( You never cut stone dry, you can cut concrete wet or dry or any variation there of). As with anything there are pros and cons each way. We do cover concrete polishing a little bit in the class but as I mentioned in the opening there are a lot of similarities to these two fields and once you have a working knowledge of one you pick up the other fairly quickly.

Sorry for the length of the post but there were some very good questions asked and I wanted to be as thorough as possible. Well that and I think the paint fumes from painting the laundry room tonight have really started to have an effect on me. All kidding aside, I hope this has helped you guys out some. Don’t ever hesitate to asked, I’ll gladly help out any way I can.

David Gelinas
Marbleguy

Please keep us posted about class dates/times.