Finished Acid Etch

[red vette mike]

I am preparing to epoxy my garage floor. I cleaned it yesterday (Sat) and today. It took 2 days to do it all. I swept and them blew out the area (my garage additon is 31x54 but there is a dividing wall that forms a separate room that is 23x14-I am only doing the bigger room now) to be painted. I then took a right angle grinder with a abrasive wheel that I had and ground out any paint spots or other imperfections. I then took some industrial cleaner and hand scrubbed any spots that I thought needed cleaning. I then scrubbed the entire surface with TSP (TPS?). I then rinsed all of this and squeeged out the excess water. That took all day Saturday.
Today I started again after church (about 11:00). I had previously used plastic on the walls to protect the walls and baseboards. I had to put some of this back up as I had also used a pressure washer yesterday and this caued some of the plastic to come loose. Even with all this cleaning and scubbing you could still see some dirt type stains in the concrete. Don't fret as Muratic Acid takes care of these tough spots (this is a slab poured in May of this year.) It took until 5:00 or later to do the Muratic Acid etch. It is some tough work-sprinkling on, scrubbing, rinsing. It wore me out. The concrete looks good. There is no doubt where the acid has done it's work. Be sure and use long chemical gloves and eye protection (I used a respirator also). That acid is strong-it eats away the top layer of concrete.
It is humid here and I don't think I can start the actual painting process until Tuesday at the earliest. I am using the Rustoleum Professional product (I have 6 kits). Anyone attempting this project better be prepared for some real work.
Mike

 

[red vette mike]

It has been more than 24 hours since I finished the acid etch. The floor still looks damp. It is hot here (80's) with high humidity 78% and a high dew point (72). It is suppose to cool down tomorrow. Hopefully the floor will be dry enough to start the painting process.

 

[boiler7904]

It is humid here and I don't think I can start the actual painting process until Tuesday at the earliest.

Mike,

You NEED to wait more than two days to start applying the Rust Oleum product especially if you say it is humid and you used a pressure washer. Your floor could easily take a week or more to dry out. The moisture will cause blistering and poor adhesion. A blistered, un-adhered (is that a word?) finish will mean that you just wasted a bunch of time and a few hundred dollars. In the long run, it's not worth trying to rush just to get it done a day or two sooner.

I did my floor earlier this month. I started by washing it with Simple Green, squeegeeing, acid etching twice, and rinsing a few times on the last sunday of August. The floor sat until the Friday of Labor Day weekend when I patched holes and masked off the areas that I didn't want to get coated. Application of the epoxy didn't start until the next morning.

Good call on the safety gear. You can get in a bunch of trouble in very little time with muriatic acid. I used safety glasses, a respirator, acid-resistant 12" long gloves and 18" rubber boots like cement crews use when pouring concrete. When my fiance came home that night and saw me wearing all that ****, she was afraid to walk anywhere near the garage or driveway. By the way, that's all real fun stuff to wear on an 85 degree day with 80% humidity.

Good luck.

 

[red vette mike]

Mike,

You NEED to wait more than two days to start applying the Rust Oleum product especially if you say it is humid and you used a pressure washer. Your floor could easily take a week or more to dry out. The moisture will cause blistering and poor adhesion. A blistered, un-adhered (is that a word?) finish will mean that you just wasted a bunch of time and a few hundred dollars. In the long run, it's not worth trying to rush just to get it done a day or two sooner.

I did my floor earlier this month. I started by washing it with Simple Green, squeegeeing, acid etching twice, and rinsing a few times on the last sunday of August. The floor sat until the Friday of Labor Day weekend when I patched holes and masked off the areas that I didn't want to get coated. Application of the epoxy didn't start until the next morning.

Good call on the safety gear. You can get in a bunch of trouble in very little time with muriatic acid. I used safety glasses, a respirator, acid-resistant 12" long gloves and 18" rubber boots like cement crews use when pouring concrete. When my fiance came home that night and saw me wearing all that ****, she was afraid to walk anywhere near the garage or driveway. By the way, that's all real fun stuff to wear on an 85 degree day with 80% humidity.

Good luck.

Boiler: You are right. I often (most always) get in too big a hurry. The floor still looks damp this morning. I will do as you say and wait some more days. A front came though last night and it is finally cooler here (lows in the 50's) and the humidity has gone down. It seems to me that the older one gets the more brutal the summers are. I know what you are talking about wearing all that safety gear in high temp/humidity (my wife saw me and just started lauging). However, the worse day was back in August when I was primeing a West outside wall (temp 98 and humidity at max) with the sun cooking down-wearing a cotton mask. That was the worse. Thanks, Mike