ArmorSeal Disaster?

[P-51]

In my last house, I used SW TileClad to cover my 340sq.ft. garage. I bought one kit (1GalA, 1GalB) and did one coat, thinking that was all that was needed. Well, it was barely enough for the space, and I ended up having to "stretch" the paint to finish the job. It ended up being too thin, so I had to go back for a second coat. Again I used one kit, and since it was the second coat, it didn't use as much, and I actually had some left over despite going reasonably thick with it.

In my new house, I have about 500 sq.ft., and I decided to go with ArmorSeal 1000HF. I bought 3 kits, because I didn't want to have to run out to the store again to get more. I figured I'd return one if I didn't need it.

Originally I was planning on doing 2 coats, but when I mixed one of the kits last night... I knew that, it probably wouldn't be enough for a full coat. If I mix two kits, it'll be well more than enough. I thought about mixing only 1.5 kits total... but thought, what the heck would I do with another half gallon, and maybe I'll run out anyway and be screwed. So, I decided to mix 2 full kits, and just put it on thick, and only do one coat, bring the 3rd kit back.

So that's what I did. After doing 1/4 of the floor, I realized I was going to have WAY too much epoxy. I guess the ArmorSeal spreads more, I probably could have done two coats with 1 kit each. Anyway, so I went back and slopped more on the area I'd already done, and then from then on, I really slopped it on. I thought this would work out because it would give a nice smooth appearance because the paint was filling in the voids, etc.

Well, this morning, I looked at the floor, and I see the paint is... "tiling". Hard to describe, but it's like dried mud. It's not cracking right through and lifting up, but you can see little lines all through it. The lines are faint, but I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. I wanted a nice smooth floor.

Is this happening because I put it on too thick? Anybody have this happen before? I also noticed little "volcanoes" or fish eyes, where the epoxy has pushed out of little air pockets in the concrete.

The floor still isn't dry. Anybody know how bad the tiling is going to get? I'm not sure if I should just leave it. The floor is protected and that's what's important.

Or, should I use the last kit to go back for another coat? Would another coat smooth things out? Or am I pretty much screwed?

Another possibility... the place where I saw this is near the door, the only place I can see up close because I can't walk on the floor yet. It's also the area I did at the end, and I think I reached the pot life limit of the epoxy. It still rolled, but it was getting tacky. Could that be the reason?

 

[bmwpower]

Dried mud? It sounds like you may have put it on too thick. The lines may be roller marks - they may go away with some time depending. The fish eyes may be due to the slab/air temp differential. Mine did the same thing here and there. Or it could the epoxy outgassing (solvent vaporizing). Or it could be air bubbles from the mixing process, especially if you laid the coating on thick.

When I did my floor, ArmorSeal stretched beyond their recommended covering and ended up chucking a bunch of epoxy. See my converage numbers in the epoxy brands sticky.

 

[P-51]

Yeah, I'm kinda pissed, because the coverage rating for ArmorSeal and TileClad is the same. So I assumed I'd need need the extra armount, but it quickly became apparent that I'd have a whole kit wasted in the bucket unless I started slathering it on... and now I have this mess.

These lines aren't roller marks. I have roller marks too, I could see that happening as I did it, but was resigned to accepting that. But... now I don't know about these other lines.

If I know a second coat would smooth it all out, I'll do it. But, if it won't fix it, I'd like to save the $150/time/effort.

 

[mhoffm911]

You may have to end up sanding the floor slightly (once it dries) and using the 3rd kit to smooth it all out.

That is probably what I would end up doing.

 

[Kevin54]

it's probably about the same as when you pile paint on a car. It is drying on top where the air hits it but it is so thick the solvents underneath have not had time to evaporate and are now working their way up through. If you have ever heard the phrase "solvent pop" with cars being painted, this is probably the same thing you are seeing. I would let it dry completely, give it a light scuffing, and put one more coat on, without trying to bury everything. Out a little more money but satisfied in the long term. Just my 2 pennies worth.

Kevin

 

[Hammerdown]

This is called "alligatoring", where the coating wrinkles like an alligator skin. It is typically caused by applying another coating too quickly over an uncured coat, as you described. The newly applied coating attacks the existing coating to form a chemical bond. If the previous coating is not adequately cured, it will wrinkle up like an alligator skin.

The bubbles are created by the solvent (liquid medium) trying to evaporate through the coating and forming the ruptures. In your case this sounds like it was caused by the 'slopping' on of more material to the previously rolled coating, not allowing the vapors to escape.

When you have reached the pot life of the product, it would usually be much thicker and have a tendancy to "glob" up, or pull itself up as you roll it.

In my humble opinion you should allow the coating to cure the recommended time and perform a few adhesion tests with some duct tape. Lay down a piece about 4 inches long and rub it flat. Wait about 15 minutes and then pull the tape up. If there is loss of adhesion you may have a larger problem and have to recoat the floor. If there is no adhesion loss then scuff sand the coating with a 60-80 grit sand paper to create a mechanical profile, remove the debris and then recoat. With any epoxy system, you do not want to apply the material thicker than recommended by the manufacturer, as you can see, it will cause a problem. Apply the materials in multiple layers to achieve the desired finish, not in one thick coat.

Hope any of this helps. Good luck on the project, I hope things go better from here on out.

 

[P-51]

I looked at the floor this morning, and it's not as bad as I feared. The alligator skin appearance is just that. It's not cracked through or anything like that. The "cracks" are only a couple thou deep. You can only see them in the light at certain angles. And the bubbles are only where it's apparent that the epoxy flowed into voids in the concrete, and then the solvent made it erupt out as you say. It's not all over. Only around obvious little voids in the concrete.

I could probably leave the floor as is, but will put down another coat to smooth it out.

Some areas are smooth as glass. Some have the skin appearance. Weird.

I wouldn't agree the skin appearance was due to me backrolling. I only did the back rolling within 15-30 minutes of rolling it the first time. And, more importantly, the skin appearance appears all over the floor. 3/4 of it was not backrolled, but I just put it on thick the first time.

So, I guess the moral of the story... don't put it on too thick, and don't try to make it fill in voids.

As far as doing a tape test... how long would you suggest waiting? The recoat window is 7 days. It won't be fully cured until after that, I think.

 

[WolverineCoatings]

it's probably about the same as when you pile paint on a car. It is drying on top where the air hits it but it is so thick the solvents underneath have not had time to evaporate and are now working their way up through.

This is dead-on...

This is called "alligatoring", where the coating wrinkles like an alligator skin. It is typically caused by applying another coating too quickly over an uncured coat, as you described. The newly applied coating attacks the existing coating to form a chemical bond. If the previous coating is not adequately cured, it will wrinkle up like an alligator skin.

This again is saying the same thing in a different format.

Here is your dilema... where you are... and what are your options:

Where you are:
The ArmorSeal HS is only 65% solids which means that 35% of it is stuff that is going to evaporate. A lower end polyamide product like this is only good as a paint which means you should ahve used about 1.5-2.5 gallons for 500 ft2. The potlife on this type of product is typically 4-6 hours... closer to 6 hours (or more) when it is cold. I can't imagine that it took that long to coat 500 ft2 so I'm going to go out on a limb and say... This has nothing to do with pot life. Your sole problem here is that the solvent is trapped and can't escape. What has happened is that since the polyamide/epoxy reaction is a chemical cure, the solvent does not have to evaporate for the reaction to take place. However, depending on the solvents used, the solvents can react with epoxy curing agents to form water and other byproducts that eventually reconvert back to amine. The reason you care about this is that each time this cyclical reaction takes place, a little bit more epoxy is converted by the hardener (polyamide/amine). Each cycle means less amine and the coating increases in viscosity until it is too thick for the solvent/water/byproducts to escape. * If you've made it this far... you're doing great! Now, what you have is 1) some reacted epoxy/hardener that has gotten 'hard', 2) alot of unreacted epoxy/hardener that could not be converted due to the cyclical reaction, 3) byproducts from the cyclical reactions. All of this is going to serve to weaken the coating. Since there will be a high percentage of unreacted material (lower crosslinking), the chemical resistance will be lowered. Since the chemical resistance will be lowered, it probably won't be resistant to the solvent that is trapped inside of itself.

If you recoat this anytime soon, you are going to make it even harder for the solvent to escape. I'm going to guess that your garage is going to smell like solvent for a really long time AND... that floor is going to remain flammable!!! You've applied about 19 mils of coating on the floor, so... I'm going to guess that you have about 1.75 gallons of flammable and volatile materials still trapped in the coating. If this product remains flexible due to the cheap plasticizers in it (like benzyl alcohol), it may remain in it's present condition without mudcracking. Obviously, anything that shrinks (because the solvent is escaping) must releive it's own internal stress. If you mix up a bunch of dirt with water and pour it thick, when the water evaporates the mud will crack all over to releive the internal stress caused from the void that is left from the absence of the water. Same thing here... except that the polymer matrix is stronger than mud.

So, what would I recommend?

1) DON'T recoat it with more solvent based material.

I would offer up 2 recommendations. I'll do the one you don't really want to hear first:

1) Take it up... scrape as much as you possibly can as soon as possible with a non-sparking scraper! You probably won't have to go all the way down to the concrete. I'd try to get at least 3/4 of it off. Then, I'd let it sit for a couple of days but not past the recoat window. Then, I'd prime with a 100% solids AHC epoxy primer and then topcoat with 20 mils of 100% solids epoxy topcoat. The thick final coat should help to hide where you scraped underneath if you did a pretty good job.

2) Wait... Let it be until about August. Limit activity in the garage that could cause a spark. I'd leave the door open as much as possible to allow ventilation. After going through the heat of summer I would lightly sand the floor and apply a 100% solids epoxy topcoat... maybe about 10 mils thick.

PS... just curious... how much was the ArmorSeal these days?

 

[P-51]

Well, I put down the second coat on Wednesday night. I realize I went against a lot of advice here, but... I didn't see Wolverine's post first of all. Secondly, I really think there's some misunderstanding between what it actually looked like vs. what the perceptions are.

Again, the bubbling is NOT "popping" as was suggested. It occured ONLY where there was a void which I had attempted to fill in with epoxy. Second, the alligator skin appearance was very faint. I also realized... it might even have been a surface profile of the concrete underneath, I'm not sure. It was just very fine lines that are only perceptible at certain light angles. The floor otherwise appeared to be sound and curing well.

This time I only mixed one kit for the second coat, and it came out to be just enough. I had about a liter left over. Knowing that a first coat uses more product, I'd say that I would have needed more than 1 kit for the first coat anyway.

I made one mistake, which I think is important to note for others. I used too high of a speed on my drill, and it "whipped" the epoxy up a bit too much... and intrained air bubbles in it. I could see them in the bucket. I hoped they would rise out while it was sweating in, but no. They were still there when I started rolling, and remained in afterwards, so now I have little bubbles in the coating. This is unlike the "volcanoes" I was talking about the first time. This is little bubbles all over.

I'd have thought this was "popping" as you say, if I didn't know that it was air trapped in the epoxy. I saw it happen. I also don't think it was trapped solvent from the first coat, because I have the doors all closed on the garage, and I was able to work in there, mixing the second batch without my respirator on with no fumes. So, there's really not any fumes in the garage from the second coat at that point.

Now, I guess we'll have to see what happens from here out. If the floor fails, I'll be sure to come back here and let you all know. I have no problem admitting my mistakes so others can learn.

But, I really think it will be fine. Based on the fact that the first coat cured well other than the barely perceptible alligatoring, and the second coat went down well and seems to have cured well, I think it's fine. We'll see. I'll leave it for a week before moving my stuff back in.

Edit: The Armorseal was about $150/kit (1Gal A, 1GalB) in Canada. That's a "contractor" price.

 

[P-51]

I would also like to add... that I was doing some math for the cost stickie thread and realized I only used about 166 sqft/Gal on the first coat. This is because I mixed 4 gallons total, but I had about a gallon left over in the bucket still. Maybe more. There's a LOT left over, I'm not sure how to measure it. SW's specs are 200-250 sqft/Gal. I can't imagine that the system will be a complete failure because I went a little over their recommended spread rate.

But, time will tell.