concrete stain mistake

[RDL]

Thanks to anybody who can give me advice--

I decided to concrete stain my garage. I applied etching solution but think i put it on far too heavily. After it dried the residue was quite thick and very difficult to remove. I spent three days doing a variety of scrubbing and pressure washing and ended up with a floor with small to large white splotches where I didn't get all the residue up, and dark zig-zags from where I pressure washed hard. The biggest splotches are about a square foot, so extremely noticeable. I got tired of dealing with it and just put on the primer, and the splotches and zig-zags are even worse. I think I made a huge mistake. I worry that when I apply the stain (semi-transparent), it will look horrible.

Will the semi-transparent stain look bad like I suspect? Would solid stain look good, covering up the splotches and zig-zags? Do I need to epoxy it (it's only a regular garage in a house, so that wouldn't be that big a deal)?

Thanks for reading and any thoughts you have.

 

[LegacyIndustrial]

Stain doesn't require primer. What you have sounds like a coating that the manufacturer is referring to as a stain.

Lots of knowledge on this forum. If you send us some pics we may be able to point you in the right direction.

Did you call the manufacturer of the products you purchased?

 

[foss]

covering with VCT may be a nice affordable option for you.

 

[RDL]

Stain doesn't require primer. What you have sounds like a coating that the manufacturer is referring to as a stain.

Lots of knowledge on this forum. If you send us some pics we may be able to point you in the right direction.

Did you call the manufacturer of the products you purchased?

Here's a picture. I was told I needed to use primer from the dude at Lowe's--probably an unpardonable sin on this board, but obviously I'm pretty new to this. I'm using Behr products. This isn't a working garage, but just to build cabinets for storage and park the car. I thought about using epoxy because I heard it's easier, but I wanted to give concrete stain a try since I'd like to do it in other parts of my house and practice in the garage. Obviously a good idea.

 

[nathank]

I'd check with the epoxy people about just going over it with epoxy.