Polishing the concrete floor

[PeaceKeeper]

I am thinking about polishing the concrete floor, anyone have any experience with this?

[bmwpower]

Me, too...subscribed.

[danski0224]

That was done at a local home improvement place. They brought in very large and expensive buffing equipment to do this. The buffing pads were diamond coated discs of different grits used during a 3 step process. There were 3 sets of three 5 inch discs arranged in a triangular fashion in each machine. The machines ran on 480v from an outboard generator set.

In another part of the store, the top layer of concrete was actually ground down to create a "poor mans terrazzo". That would look neat if the aggregate mix was chosen to allow for the look, instead of being blotchy like it turned out.

It looked real good for about 2 months. They claimed to have sealed the floor, but today it looks just as dirty as before.

Other stores from the same retailer have shiny floors, but I think that is related to the original finishing of the concrete when the store was built.

I think polishing the floor would be a waste of good money, but that's just me. It would need to be sealed and maintained so it wouldn't stain. Slippery, too.

[bmwpower]

I guess I was more interested in smoothing out my floor rather than polishing it. I would assume using only the first grit or two may accomplish this.

Hopefully you can rent this type of equipment.

[PeaceKeeper]

danski0224, thanks.

[danski0224]

I guess I was more interested in smoothing out my floor rather than polishing it. I would assume using only the first grit or two may accomplish this.

Hopefully you can rent this type of equipment.

Smooth concrete = Slippery When Wet!

When they polished the floors, the first go around actually made it pretty rough. I think that step knocked down the high spots. Only smoothed out on the third pass.

The equipment they used was pretty specialized. I had never seen anything like it before, but I had never seen a large scale floor polished like that. I have seen terrazzo finished, and these buffers weren't the same.

The electrical tape on the 480V 3 phase extension cords made me nervous... :shocking:

The floor looked wet when it was all done, doesn't look like that now, though.

You can probably rent something similar, and I assume the rental place will mic out the diamond discs and charge for the material used, just like a coring bit... if they don't make you buy your own consumables.