Stripping and Repair

[brandoncolorado]

Ugh. I just ruined part of my brand new epoxy flooring because of some crappy drop cloth that I used. I'm writing for advice to see if there are any feasible repair options. Here is where I'm at:

1) You can see my floor and an earlier topic here:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=3270499#post3270499

2) I finished 2/3 of my 3 car garage with Rustoleum professional and Rustoleum clear coat. I gave it 7 days to dry before moving on to the third stall.

3) While working on the third stall, I laid a paper (ecodrop) drop cloth on the finished side to hold my tools/paint roller as I worked. This was a terrible mistake.

4) The epoxy leaked through the paper and dried overnight. When I went to clean up, I barely pulled up on the brown paper dropcloth and a few good size chunks of the epoxy came up with it:

http://imgur.com/ItZ1Uhi,WERYmqL#1

http://i.imgur.com/ItZ1Uhi.jpg

5) I also have some brown paper stuck in the epoxy that I can't seem to get out.



What are my options here? I'm mad at the dropcloth company and I am definitely mad at myself for letting this happen. I should have known better, but I didn't realize that this would happen.

Are there any repair/touch up options here?

How do I remove the brown paper that you see in the picture?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[brandoncolorado]

Bump. Would love ideas on how I can repair the mistake.

 

[bdamico]

I would guess that since those chunks came up so easily, the rest is gonna come up soon enough due to bad prep.

 

[brandoncolorado]

I would guess that since those chunks came up so easily, the rest is gonna come up soon enough due to bad prep.

Let's hope not. Can I paint those small spots with an epoxy repair kit? If so, where do I get one?

 

[pauls_workshop]

You could mix up more of the basecoat and touch up those spots with a small paintbrush. But the bigger issues seems to be that the epoxy pulled right off. What kind of prep did you do exactly before the epoxy job? Grinding the floor is usually the best option for best prep, though acid etch can be done too if done well. If you didn't do anything at all, you are likely going to be in trouble and more will come off later on. - Paul

 

[brandoncolorado]

Thanks. I'm hoping not. I did acid etch the floor, and it was a perfectly clean unsealed floor. I'm probably overstating how simple it was to pull up. The paper is thick brown drop paper. The clear coat epoxy leaked through and attached itself to the lower layers. In other words, the paper and clear coat mixed and attached to the base layers. When I pulled up, I pulled up with quite a bit of force because it was a lot of paper. I basically tried to rip it off the floor because I thought tape was holding it down. Parts of the paper are still embedded and attached to the floor.

That said, I spoke with Home Depot today. They said that they could mix me a one part epoxy with my custom color. Would that be good for touch ups?

 

[fury9]

It doesn't sound like the floor was prepped right, although I am not a flooring expert. An expert will chime in soon hopefully for you

 

[bdamico]

Thanks. I'm hoping not. I did acid etch the floor, and it was a perfectly clean unsealed floor. I'm probably overstating how simple it was to pull up. The paper is thick brown drop paper. The clear coat epoxy leaked through and attached itself to the lower layers. In other words, the paper and clear coat mixed and attached to the base layers. When I pulled up, I pulled up with quite a bit of force because it was a lot of paper. I basically tried to rip it off the floor because I thought tape was holding it down. Parts of the paper are still embedded and attached to the floor.

That said, I spoke with Home Depot today. They said that they could mix me a one part epoxy with my custom color. Would that be good for touch ups?

Seriously give this a few days for some epoxy experts to chime in. They are here and probably weren't clued in by the title of your thread. Again. If you can pull some of this stuff off now, it would seem to me to be a really bad sign that your floor is screwed. I've had epoxy and painted floors that I couldn't pull up years later if I tried. The notion of just pulling up ain't right to me. And do yourself a favor read some epoxy threads, identify the experts, and pm them. One is shea, another is garageguy or something.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Delamination occurring that easily is a sure sign of poor prep, laitance or both.
Grind it all off and recoat.

There is no sense trying to patch together something that will surely have a limited lifespan.
IMO

 

[brandoncolorado]

Got it. I'll look at options and hope that this whole thing isn't shot. That would be a shame because I was pretty proud of my first job. I probably should have used muriatic acid.

Here is a video of the issue because you can't really see the problem from the pictures:

I now also realize that I shouldn't have called this thread "stripping" and anything. I might draw some interesting folks here.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Yes, it's an adhesion issue. Shame because its a good looking floor.

 

[Cullen666]

I totally agree with you in that case because stripping and repairing especially for those homes or buildings that are totally old and not in a good form,so work of stripping and repairing is possible only when sentry work has totally completed and all the aluminium pipes will have layer under ground the walls and floor especially for water and Gas purposes.Do you agree for that post dude??????

 

[fwillison]

This is the kind of thing that makes me certain I will never apply an epoxy over my shop floor.

 

[JakeKohl]

Delamination occurring that easily is a sure sign of poor prep, laitance or both.
Grind it all off and recoat.

There is no sense trying to patch together something that will surely have a limited lifespan.
IMO

Well...there is sense in making a small repair now on the lifted areas and seeing how it will hold up down the road. Tearing out and doing over can be done now or later and if it holds up to his garage lifestyle, it would be unnecessary.

I don't know much about these epoxies - but is it possible that the clearcoat temporarily softened the coating making it easier to come up? It may be that his prep was OK.

I say touch up the little bad spots and see how it holds up under hot tires and the like before committing the cash and time to tearing it all out.

 

[JakeKohl]

This is the kind of thing that makes me certain I will never apply an epoxy over my shop floor.

I know...me too.

 

[jose's garage]

to much talk about telling Brandon he did bad prep. he two bonded together and became one. i fugure it would be like body work clean it up, maybe grind it to scuff it up and repaint effected area.

 

[bdamico]

to much talk about telling Brandon he did bad prep. he two bonded together and became one. i fugure it would be like body work clean it up, maybe grind it to scuff it up and repaint effected area.

It's probably the most useful discussion to have since this shouldn't happen. Identifying the problem helps identify the solution.

 

[slickgt1]

If that happened with paper, imagine a warm tire. Forget about it. The fact that the product had the word Pro in it, means nothing either. I would not invest more to do a patch job.

 

[Oldbear]

This is the kind of thing that makes me certain I will never apply an epoxy over my shop floor.

Mine is going strong for almost two years. And my garage is my shop - welding, grinding, wood-working, wrenching, oils & paints, dropped parts... a pink Barbie Jeep... With no signs of problems - its 95% prep and 5% paint - I'm prepping now to paint the rest of my basement floor - I'll take 2 weeks of evenings & weekends to spend 2 hours painting.

 

[Blk88GT]

This is the kind of thing that makes me certain I will never apply an epoxy over my shop floor.

Exactly. Not a chance, even if it was FREE.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Yee of little faith.
Epoxy floors are installed at thousands and thousands of food manufacturing facilities, automotive shops, chem plants, pharma plants, hospitals, labs, etc... across the world.

When prepared correctly they are great!

 

[brandoncolorado]

Well...there is sense in making a small repair now on the lifted areas and seeing how it will hold up down the road. Tearing out and doing over can be done now or later and if it holds up to his garage lifestyle, it would be unnecessary.

I don't know much about these epoxies - but is it possible that the clearcoat temporarily softened the coating making it easier to come up? It may be that his prep was OK.

I say touch up the little bad spots and see how it holds up under hot tires and the like before committing the cash and time to tearing it all out.

This is the route I am taking. Both Home Depot and Rustoleum are helping me out, so I am getting a new kit free of charge. They don't make touch-up kits, so I'm getting the full thing.

Hopefully I can take a cup of each and mix them, but that might give me a different color result. I don't want to use both full cans because then I won't have any left in case further problems develop.

All of this said, I do understand that I might have done bad prep. I did follow directions, and I did use the etch. I probably didn't do enough, but I can't stomach the idea of redoing the whole garage right now. I am by no means a garage nut, I simply did this because I thought it would be a great addition to our home. I'm going to wait to see if a full re-do is necessary.

The paper that I pulled up was two full layers of thick brown drop paper. It bonded to the floor because the epoxy bled through. When I pulled it up, I imagine that there was simply enough force to pull the epoxy from the concrete below. Either way, I think a patch is the best course of action temporarily because it won't cost me anything.

Thanks everyone for the conversation. Hopefully someone can learn from my mistake.

 

[pauls_workshop]

Brandon, if your kit requires mixing time after you mix the two parts before using, be careful mixing a small amount. The time may be different because the heat generated from the reaction will be different. You might verify with the manufacturer how long to leave them in the bucket before applying. For instance, if 1 gallon of each gets 1/2 hour in the bucket, a cup of each might need more time, like 45 min or 1 hr or something. Check it out before you do it.

Also, the tear off that happened happened in shear. Shear forces are very different than normal forces from weight, etc. This is a weakness of an epoxy floor or any painted/coated floor. Tire pull off is also a shear type failure. But this might be a much worse than normal condition for the floor to go though. So trying a repair for awhile and seeing how it goes might be a good idea. It might be ok. - Paul

 

[brandoncolorado]

Brandon, if your kit requires mixing time after you mix the two parts before using, be careful mixing a small amount. The time may be different because the heat generated from the reaction will be different. You might verify with the manufacturer how long to leave them in the bucket before applying. For instance, if 1 gallon of each gets 1/2 hour in the bucket, a cup of each might need more time, like 45 min or 1 hr or something. Check it out before you do it.

Also, the tear off that happened happened in shear. Shear forces are very different than normal forces from weight, etc. This is a weakness of an epoxy floor or any painted/coated floor. Tire pull off is also a shear type failure. But this might be a much worse than normal condition for the floor to go though. So trying a repair for awhile and seeing how it goes might be a good idea. It might be ok. - Paul

Thanks for the advice. I'll contact rustoleum and ask them the best way to proceed.