Grinding small strip of Epoxy

[amberjack1234]

I decided to get one of the Tsunami garage door seals. Well, I didn't plan on that when I put my floor down. I stopped the epoxy right at the edge of the seal underneath the door. I put one coat of primer, one coat of Epoxy with flakes to rejection and 4 coats of polyurethane. All that made it fairly thick. When I cut and laid down the seal it wound up to be half on the epoxy and half off the epoxy. Plus the floor with all those flakes on it was pretty rough. I was afraid that the glue would not seal it enough to keep the water out.

I knew that I had several options but went with marking it and grinding a strip about 2" X 16'. I can tell you one thing if the rest of my epoxy is bonded to the concrete as well as that 2" strip I should NEVER have any trouble with it coming up. It took me 3 hours of constant grinding to get that darn 2" strip up with a 7" grinder and I have not cut out the corners yet.

I am writing this to let other newbies, like myself, to think about this when planning on putting down your epoxy floor. Make plans for the seal if you are going to put one down and save yourself a LOT of work. In my case I had not planed on putting one down and then decided that I wanted one.

 

[Garage Flooring]

I decided to get one of the Tsunami garage door seals. Well, I didn't plan on that when I put my floor down. I stopped the epoxy right at the edge of the seal underneath the door. I put one coat of primer, one coat of Epoxy with flakes to rejection and 4 coats of polyurethane. All that made it fairly thick. When I cut and laid down the seal it wound up to be half on the epoxy and half off the epoxy. Plus the floor with all those flakes on it was pretty rough. I was afraid that the glue would not seal it enough to keep the water out.

I knew that I had several options but went with marking it and grinding a strip about 2" X 16'. I can tell you one thing if the rest of my epoxy is bonded to the concrete as well as that 2" strip I should NEVER have any trouble with it coming up. It took me 3 hours of constant grinding to get that darn 2" strip up with a 7" grinder and I have not cut out the corners yet.

I am writing this to let other newbies, like myself, to think about this when planning on putting down your epoxy floor. Make plans for the seal if you are going to put one down and save yourself a LOT of work. In my case I had not planed on putting one down and then decided that I wanted one.

You're not alone in this. Its probably one of the most common calls we get. The product gets adhered with Liquid Nails. I was going to post a link to the specific product, but either the Liquid Nails site is having issues or I am

The manufacturer wont guarantee it over epoxy. Can't say I blame them. Most of my customers will rough up the epoxy and use a solvent wipe with very good results.

 

[amberjack1234]

Yep, that is why I ground it all out. It was a heck of a job for such a small strip but I thought that it would be worth it. I just wanted folks to know about my experience so that they could make a better plan and do better than I did. That is what it's all about here helping each other. Right.

 

[workhurts]

Does liquid nails not like epoxy? Can't you just rough it up and glue it down or use something that likes smoother surfaces? Or some kind of chemical etch ... maybe sand blast

 

[Garage Flooring]

Does liquid nails not like epoxy? Can't you just rough it up and glue it down or use something that likes smoother surfaces? Or some kind of chemical etch ... maybe sand blast

Its a CYA thing. The manufacturer won't warranty it over any coating because they can't test them all and they don't want to be liable.

 

[amberjack1234]

For me the floor coating was so thick that edge of the floor coating came in the middle of the seal and it just rocked back and fourth like a playground see saw and with the flakes to rejection I was afraid that the glue would not be enough to keep water out in a blowing rain storm.

There is probably a product that would adhere to the polyurethane but finding out which one would be almost impossible and I had only one shot at it. I was thinking about "Marine Tech" that is some great stuff but that would have been very expensive and no guarantee. If anything would stick the two together that would. I used it in my Jet Ski business and never had it to fail. So I just took it all out because I didn't want to take a chance on having to do it again.