Acid Stain & AcryliSeal3501...In Use!

Hey Everyone,

First off; sorry for the lengthy post but it seems like Acid Stain plus Sealer is not so common so I wanted to really document what I’ve done so far. Feel free to skip down to the pics if you don’t care!

Like most everyone else on here I have spent years drooling over the mere notion of finishing my garage. Countless hours researching floor coatings, cabinets, accessories, etc. Finally two weeks ago I started my project. I have a 500ft2 1.5 car garage (meaning you can fit two cars and nothing else, or one car and other toys ).

Prep:
1. Clean out the garage…not much fun but it is kinda cool to see the whole thing with nothing in it
2. Sweep, Vacuum, etc.
3. Floor Maintainer & TSP: Rented the floor maintainer from HD and it only cost me $40 including scrub pads etc. It took a while to get used to the equipment but it did a great job on the floor (I didn’t have much in the way of oil/grease just tire marks and dirt.
4. Power Wash: There was quite a bit of residue left over from the tsp and this really brought out the shine.

Applying the Acid Stain:
1. Luckily for Acid Stain that’s all the prep I needed to do; talked to numerous manufacturers and they said as long as everything is clean and porous I was all set
2. Purchased two gallons of Shore Gray Acid Stain from H&C Concrete (Distributed by Sherwin Williams for ~$60/gallon). Research pointed me toward Kemiko stain as the best but they did not offer a gray in their lineup.
3. Applied a small test patch of the stain and let it dry to make sure I liked it.
4. Applied 2 coats of Acid Stain. IF YOU PLAN ON ACID STAINING READ HERE! The Acid stain worked great, exactly as described; BUT be sure when you do your test patch that you do so in natural light; not artificial. When I started getting near the edge of the garage the gray I liked so much turned out to look like the Statue of Liberty . Not exactly what I had in mind but I’m still waiting to see what the whole thing will look like (More about this in a moment).
5. Mixed Baking Soda and water and scrubbed the heck out of the whole floor….TWICE. Everything I read said the most important step is making sure to neutralize the reaction and get off all reside left behind by the acid stain before adding a sealer.
6. Let it dry for a few days….Stewed on how disappointed I was w/ green instead of gray.
7. I figured I would try adding another coat on top of H&C Decorative stain in tumbled stone (a true gray color, but without the acidic reaction) to try to "resolve" my issue. Needless to say this was just a delay; applied, didn’t soak in much, and then I had to clean it all off which took another whole day.

Sealer:
1. Vacuumed up the floor once more and re-taped the edges.
2. This is where I’m at; AcryliSeal 3501 goes on tomorrow! Check back for pics and another update then!

The rest of what I hope to have done by labor day (a long time but I’m out of town every week so I can usually only work Saturday/Sunday):
1. Bring sheetrock down to the floor over the bottom 40” of concrete
2. Add some sort of chair rail
3. Add some sort of trim molding
4. Gladiator Cabinets (BTW just purchased two 30” assembled wall cabinets from sears on special for $99 each... normally $179!)

Thanks for reading and check back for more updates!

The Pics:

The garage on its way to being empty


Close up


Clean!


Clean Close Up


Acid Stain wet (the wet spots is what it should look like after tomorrow)


Acid stain dry

Good job! I'm looking forward to see your pictures after applying the sealer. To get a bigger picture posted, try using photobucket or equivalent and just put the link in here (see the test section for detailed instructions)

My question is when this is all done, how slippery will it be when wet? That is what I am worried about with this type of solution.

It will be more slippery than it was before the sealer was applied. How slpippery depends on a few factors. Unlike a full epoxy coating, which in our case is about 24 mils thick, the sealer coating is relatively thin, just a few mils, so its texture will be more dependent on the texture of the substrate.

For example, if the concrete has a lot of exposed smooth surfaced aggregate then the coating will be slippery, especially over those little pebbles. If there's a lot of rougher exposed cement, then it won't be near as slippery.

But the increased slippiness is pretty easy to mitigate - just use a grit additive in the final coat. That could be a engineered grit, aluminum oxide, or even some sand. Depending on your choice the grit is either added to the sealer before its applied, or tossed onto the sealer right after it's been rolled out.

Ok, so the AcryliSeal 3501 is dry and ready to go! It went on easily although the first coat made me a little nervous as it didn't seem to be even AT ALL... but in the end it dried just fine. 5 gallons was supposed to give me 3 coats (500 ft2) but I was actually able to get 4 with a little left over. This is probably because I thinned out the first coat for a glossier look (per manufacturer's instructions of course). It's had a day to dry and the only part that was kind of a pain was removing the tape from the walls as in some spots I had to take a box cutter to the edge to make sure it didn't take any of the floor with it. Still seams a little "gummy" to me but im sure that will continue to harden over the next day or so.

So far: VERY HAPPY!

Here are some quick pictures but I'll get better ones in the day light when I get a chance!

Nice Job! Looks great!

BTW We'll be offering an acid stain from Wolverine pretty soon, so you'll be able to get all the materials from one place.

Although we might have a twist or two on the acid stain compared to the competition, price and application will be pretty similar.

Our competitive advantage is the AcryliSeal 3501 clear coat/sealer. Not only is it an extremely durable one coat, easy to apply sealer, it's also very affordable.

I've had one of our industrial floor contractors tell me he thinks this stuff is on par with some 2 part epoxies he's used.

How does it stand up to the normal assortment of automotive fluids that get spilled on a floor?

Mark

ScaldedDog said:

How does it stand up to the normal assortment of automotive fluids that get spilled on a floor?

Mark

Click to expand...

The chemical resistance is awesome, not the same level resistance level of our epoxy and urethane based systems, but far superior than either other water based or solvent based acrylics currently available. It’s even resistant to some pretty aggressive chemicals including organic solvents like MEK, Xylene, Toluene, etc.

If there were problems with common chems like brake fluid etc. odds are I would have heard about it, but so far no complaints. I have some AcryliSeal 3501 applied to a section of walkway, if I have some brake fluid I'll spill a bit and see what happens. Not too scientific, but I never claimed to be an Einstein.

It will make spills far easier to wipe up, although chemical spills should be wiped up as soon as possible.

This product is less than 3 years old and we have not heard of a failure to date. So, the durability is much better than either of the typical solvent based or water based acrylics.

Thanks for the photos and writeup! I (like many others here), have been doing my research on how I would like to finish my newly built 16x24 bay. Your writeup is the closest scenario I have seen to my current floor conditions and desired end result.

The pad was poured last winter before the walls / roof went on. Some materials and lumber were stored on the pad while construction was going on and have left a few stains from sitting long enough before everything was enclosed.

I live up in rural Northern Vermont, so there isn't much around here aside from a Home Depot and Lowe's across the border in New Hampshire. After reading and seeing a few application of the AcryliSeal 3501, I would like to go this route, however I have no idea where to purchase it. Any suggestions?

Also, between a water based stain and the acid, is the acid based the route to go? I'm thinking of doing a dark gray / ebony color, but wasn't sure if the water based stains would get the desired results.

Hi Guys,

It's been awhile since I've been able to pop in... and... this may be the only post I get to tonight.

First, acid stain is a cheap alternative to an epoxy system. I would absolutely NOT skimp when it comes to purchasing the acid stain. I am not a fan of H&C at all.

As you all know we have been beta testing the AcryliSeal 3501 in garage floors for awhile now... over a year I think. We have had great reports except for one floor.

Here is what happened:
We got a call that there was hot tire pickup. Obviously, we wanted to figure out what was going on since there were so many successful installations. After much discussion and review here is what happened:

1) The homeowner did a really good job of documenting his work. He followed all instructions really well.

2) He applied H&C acid stain... just like this scenario
3) He ALSO was not happy with the color and applied the H&C non-acid stain over what was already acid stained

We asked the owner to send us some samples of the peeled materials so we could look at it under a microscope. When we got the samples it was obvious that there was a colored material stuck to the AcryliSeal 3501... we didn't need a microscope.

So, there were basically 3 layers:
1) The acid stained concrete
2) The non-acid stain
3) AcryliSeal 3501

It appears and the evidence shows that the non-acid stain did not stay bonded to the concrete. It blocked the AcryliSeal 3501 from adhering to the concrete (it adhered to the non-acid stain that was between it and the concrete).

A simple analogy is that if you apply scotch tape over something and then apply a layer of duct tape... if the scotch tape loses it's bond... the duct tape comes up with it.

The homeowner is going to repair the few areas with the bonding problem. Since the H&C non-acid stain was bonded to the back of the AcryliSeal 3501 it should be mostly gone from the concrete in those areas.

*** I'm sorry if this sounds choppy. 2 paragraphs ago I got a call that a neighbor's child had choked to death today. I am friends with this family and we went to church together for about 7-8 years. The boy, Jeremy was only a junior in high school. I left and went to minister to the family and pray with them. I'm pretty emotionally drained right now. It's been a tough night. I'll try to finish this out.

Yes, we are producing small amounts of acid stain. We have developed formulations that are extremely high quality and have about 12 colors formulated. It's a really nice pallet of colors. However, we are still increasing production capacity to handle these materials. We don't yet have enough manufacturing capacity to offer these products to the DIY market... maybe soon. For now, I would recommend using Kemiko. There is not another brand that I feel comfortable recommending. Acid stain is NOT acid stain... if you're going cheap... don't skimp on cheap!

Guys... this is just all I can write right now... my heart just isn't in this right now. I'll try to finish this later. Sorry to end so abruptly...

We've been really happy with the Kemiko stain and even the water based sealer we put down a good while back. My research told me they have OK sealers and the best stain.

After looking at several of the options out there for flooring, this looks like something that I would like to do in my garage.

I am looking for a finish that looks nice, makes it easier to keep clean (easy to sweep out and doesn't create a lot of dust), and if possible won't be too slippery - thought about putting some type of grit additive for the areas around the door if possible?

To the guys at Wolverine, how is the acid stain product coming? I would love to be one of the first to try it out.

They've been working on a few interesting products, but the acid stain isn't one of them, so I don't have a projected date.

In the meantime Kemiko acid stains come is a nice selection of tints and work well with AcryliSeal 3501.