I decided to do my ~400 sq ft garage with epoxy, after researching various options I went with Devoe products available from a local ICI dealer. This is what I purchased:
I made my own spiked shoes using wood with screws attached to the bottom of old sneakers. Other sundries included pails, power stirrers, gloves, duct tape for edging, disposable roller pans and rollers.
My slab is 5 years old, and was in good shape, no cracks, only a couple of minor stains from the previous owner. I did a moisture test – no problems. I started my prep with a sweeping, blowing, TSP scrubbing rinsing and a standard Muriatic acid wash, 3 parts water, one part/gallon acid. I did not find that the results from the acid were very good. I had applied a small amount of pure acid to a quarter-sized test spot earlier and that produced was a very nice rough surface but this diluted version of the acid did not produce the same results (too smooth). So I decided to do a second acid wash of the main areas of the floor where the cars park with straight Muriatic acid, not diluted (used 2 gallons straight). The result was a much better surface (rougher). I did neutralize with baking soda and flood with water to rinse however the resulting mess appears to have stained my driveway – haven’t gotten around to seeing if the stains will scrub off, I suspect I will need to recoat the blacktop to get rid of them, no biggie, just mentioning it.
Anyway, having completed all the prep work earlier I started on my first coat on Saturday morning. I mixed the first kit (2 gallons) of 224HS very thoroughly with a power stirrer, let it set up for 15 minutes per the directions and then thinned it with a pint of xylol thinner which made it much easier to apply. I did the outside edge with a 4” roller and then the rest with a 9” roller, both Wooster epoxy-glide purchased from ThePaintStore.com.
The surface was very porous and although I was able to get the entire floor coated, it felt very thin with some spots barely covered, like a coat of paint. There were also roller marks in spots that I tried to touch up at the end by going back over where the epoxy had started to setup. Since it was the first coat I wasn’t too worried about it. It took a little over an hour working by myself to put that coat on. A removed all duct tape after about an hour because I didn’t want it to become permanently part of the floor – it came up fine at that time and gave a nice clean edge where the garage doors are.
I let that cure all day, it rained for about an hour and there was high humidity, temps in the 70’s.
By evening it felt hard so I decided to apply the second coat rather than waiting until the next day. I mixed the second batch the same as the first but skipped the thinner and didn’t bother putting it in a roller pan – I poured straight from the mixing pail to the floor in sections and then used the 9” roller to spread it around and I didn’t bother doing the edge with a smaller roller.
This worked out well (saved time, wasted less) and with the floor being already sealed from the first coax, the second coat went on much thicker and gave a good looking coat. After it was all down I put on the spiked shoes and began to apply the color flakes. I used the ‘throw up’ technique but I found out (the hard way) that if you throw them up too hard they tend to hit the ceiling and bounce back down fast in a clump rather than evenly spreading around. I tried to blend these concentrated areas in but overall I think I could have done a better job if I had gone a bit slower and taken my time – I was concerned that the epoxy would setup before I got the flakes down which in retrospect probably wasn’t a real issue since the pot life on this product is quite long and it being the evening the temps were a lower (in the 60’s)
The next day (Sunday) the second coat didn’t feel hard until around noon so I waited until then to apply the final clear coat after sweeping off any flakes that weren’t adhered. This stuff is quite thin so I rolled it on using a roller pan. It’s a little hard to see what you have and haven’t done unless you walk away and look at an angle. I also ended up with some left over product which I tried to use by putting on some additional thickness but I probably should have just well enough alone because now I have some areas that have extra clear coat thickness which is visible if you look at the right angle. The clear coat was still tacky last night which had me a little worried but as of this morning the tackiness was gone – the datasheet shows that the 379 product has a much longer time until hard than the 224HS so I assume that this is normal.
Overall I’m really happy with how it came out, no surprises which in large part is due to this board. I would like the thank the people in this forum that came before me and posted their experiences in general and those in particular that used Devoe products, gregs & Jaguar Fan’s threads:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16428
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16957
The ICI store wasn’t overly helpful and in fact for a little while there I don’t think the guy was going to sell the stuff to me because I wasn’t a professional/contractor. After I explained how much research I had done he let me buy it – not like he was doing me a huge favor, I couldn’t believe how much the 224HS was per gallon they charged compared to what others had posted ($135 per kit vs $75 for the others)
The 4 pictures below show what it looked like after the acid prep, after the first color coat and the last two show the final result.
- 4 Gallons Color Coat (Tinted Grey) : Devoe Devran 224HS (2 x 2 Gallon Kits) = $136/kit, $272 total
- 1 Gallon Top Coat : Devoe DevThane 379UVA Clear = $95
- 6 Lbs Color Flakes = $62 (Wolverine Ebay Purchase), went with equal amts of Moonless Midnight (black), Snow White and Royal Blue
I made my own spiked shoes using wood with screws attached to the bottom of old sneakers. Other sundries included pails, power stirrers, gloves, duct tape for edging, disposable roller pans and rollers.
My slab is 5 years old, and was in good shape, no cracks, only a couple of minor stains from the previous owner. I did a moisture test – no problems. I started my prep with a sweeping, blowing, TSP scrubbing rinsing and a standard Muriatic acid wash, 3 parts water, one part/gallon acid. I did not find that the results from the acid were very good. I had applied a small amount of pure acid to a quarter-sized test spot earlier and that produced was a very nice rough surface but this diluted version of the acid did not produce the same results (too smooth). So I decided to do a second acid wash of the main areas of the floor where the cars park with straight Muriatic acid, not diluted (used 2 gallons straight). The result was a much better surface (rougher). I did neutralize with baking soda and flood with water to rinse however the resulting mess appears to have stained my driveway – haven’t gotten around to seeing if the stains will scrub off, I suspect I will need to recoat the blacktop to get rid of them, no biggie, just mentioning it.
Anyway, having completed all the prep work earlier I started on my first coat on Saturday morning. I mixed the first kit (2 gallons) of 224HS very thoroughly with a power stirrer, let it set up for 15 minutes per the directions and then thinned it with a pint of xylol thinner which made it much easier to apply. I did the outside edge with a 4” roller and then the rest with a 9” roller, both Wooster epoxy-glide purchased from ThePaintStore.com.
The surface was very porous and although I was able to get the entire floor coated, it felt very thin with some spots barely covered, like a coat of paint. There were also roller marks in spots that I tried to touch up at the end by going back over where the epoxy had started to setup. Since it was the first coat I wasn’t too worried about it. It took a little over an hour working by myself to put that coat on. A removed all duct tape after about an hour because I didn’t want it to become permanently part of the floor – it came up fine at that time and gave a nice clean edge where the garage doors are.
I let that cure all day, it rained for about an hour and there was high humidity, temps in the 70’s.
By evening it felt hard so I decided to apply the second coat rather than waiting until the next day. I mixed the second batch the same as the first but skipped the thinner and didn’t bother putting it in a roller pan – I poured straight from the mixing pail to the floor in sections and then used the 9” roller to spread it around and I didn’t bother doing the edge with a smaller roller.
This worked out well (saved time, wasted less) and with the floor being already sealed from the first coax, the second coat went on much thicker and gave a good looking coat. After it was all down I put on the spiked shoes and began to apply the color flakes. I used the ‘throw up’ technique but I found out (the hard way) that if you throw them up too hard they tend to hit the ceiling and bounce back down fast in a clump rather than evenly spreading around. I tried to blend these concentrated areas in but overall I think I could have done a better job if I had gone a bit slower and taken my time – I was concerned that the epoxy would setup before I got the flakes down which in retrospect probably wasn’t a real issue since the pot life on this product is quite long and it being the evening the temps were a lower (in the 60’s)
The next day (Sunday) the second coat didn’t feel hard until around noon so I waited until then to apply the final clear coat after sweeping off any flakes that weren’t adhered. This stuff is quite thin so I rolled it on using a roller pan. It’s a little hard to see what you have and haven’t done unless you walk away and look at an angle. I also ended up with some left over product which I tried to use by putting on some additional thickness but I probably should have just well enough alone because now I have some areas that have extra clear coat thickness which is visible if you look at the right angle. The clear coat was still tacky last night which had me a little worried but as of this morning the tackiness was gone – the datasheet shows that the 379 product has a much longer time until hard than the 224HS so I assume that this is normal.
Overall I’m really happy with how it came out, no surprises which in large part is due to this board. I would like the thank the people in this forum that came before me and posted their experiences in general and those in particular that used Devoe products, gregs & Jaguar Fan’s threads:
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16428
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16957
The ICI store wasn’t overly helpful and in fact for a little while there I don’t think the guy was going to sell the stuff to me because I wasn’t a professional/contractor. After I explained how much research I had done he let me buy it – not like he was doing me a huge favor, I couldn’t believe how much the 224HS was per gallon they charged compared to what others had posted ($135 per kit vs $75 for the others)
The 4 pictures below show what it looked like after the acid prep, after the first color coat and the last two show the final result.
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