Hi 04 Navi,
I just wanted to say that your floor looks great. I know you called in when you got the product and we sent you back to Budget Bob. I thought I might just take a minute and do some explaining...
It was all dropped shipped from Weaver industries as quality rejects.
Just so no one gets confused... Navi meant Wolverine Coatings not Weaver Industries
First... Who is Wolverine Coatings Corporation (skip this part if you don't really care...lol)?
We are a formulator and manufacturer of high performance coatings. Our technology is extremely advanced and the durability is phenomenal. We only sell to certified installers and through distribution. We make products to coat the inside of chemical storage tanks and have products to resist almost any chemical known to man. We also make heavy duty polymer based flooring materials for chemical plants, food service, USDA inspected meat processing plants, nuclear and pharmaceutical facilities. Typically, people call Wolverine Coatings when they have a tough problem to solve.
What are BondTite 1101 and LiquaTile 1184?
The BondTite 1101 is a 100% solids AHC (advanced hybrid cycloaliphatic) fluoropolymer modified primer that can also be used as a clear coat. There are not many things this stuff won't bond to. This product does not contain any water or solvents! It is NOT flammable. It is 100% active and will bond to the concrete in three ways. First, just like all epoxy & urethane type products, it will fill the pours and get hard and give some bond strength in that way. However, the bond strength is increased exponentially through chemical bonding with the concrete surface. Last, because of the unique fluoropolymer design, it penetrates and displaces water, dirt, and oil that may be below the surface of the concrete which allows more surface contact with the pour walls below the surface. Since this material is NOT sensitive to moisture it can be used to prime damp surfaces with no problems.
LiquaTile 1184 is our entry level semi-ceramic AHC polymer flooring material. This product is routinely applied in extremely harsh environments and will even take fairly high concentrations of Sulfuric Acid! This product is different from other products in the marketplace because while it cures to an extremely hard durable finish, it remains flexible to expand and contract with concrete. It will wear very similarly to ceramic tile. Because of the hybrid structure, it has a tremendous tendency to level and can be applied even in cold temperatures down to a bit under 40f. This product does not contain any water or solvents! It is NOT flammable.
Who is Budget Bob?
The products that Budget Bob buys from us consist of some new virgin product and some off-spec product. Virgin products consist of anything that is freshly made and passes all of our quality control tests. Since we make high-end performance products, all products must be PERFECT for quality. When a batch is processed that does not meet our standards, we quarantine it and sell it as 'Quality Rejected' at a budget price. In general, the products that we sell as off spec have only minor issues such as being off shade (80-90% of the time). It's a great deal for anyone who is going to purchase materials to do a complete project at one time that will not need to **** up to floor that they installed a year ago with off-shade product. In other words, as long as you are using the same batch number with off shade material your floor will all be one color!
Ok, now that we got through all of that... here are some more things that I would like to address:
For the money this product costs, I would have been looking at EpoxyShield Pro or Supercoat.
Supercoat nor EpoxyShield are even remotely in the same ballpark quality as LiquaTile. The Supercoat is a microporous product that counts on the formation of pours in the coating to release gas from the concrete that would otherwise disbond the coating from the concrete. When the Epoxy Resin portion and Hardener react the water evaporates and the moisture vapor leaves trails from the concrete surface through the coating. Obviously, any porous material leaves lots of opportunities for chemical and abrasion attack. Think of it this way, if you made flooring out of 1x10's... which would be stronger? Would it be a 1x10 that had 1000 1/16" holes drilled in it or would it be a solid piece? As far as the EpoxyShield Pro is concerned, solvent has to evaporate just like water! No matter which of these products you use... make SURE you have adequate ventilation and no pilot lights on (or any source of sparks) since BOTH products contain flammable solvents that can blow up your house or garage (yep... the waterborne DOES contain flammable solvents).
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=43912
Budget Bob only recommends 10% muratic acid, but I did the old 20%. He doesn't even see the need to etch if your concrete doesn't let the water puddle. So a little overkill on my part.
DOH! He Didn't... Did he? It's true that MANY people have done garage floors with out BondTite that did not etch. HOWEVER, it's like anything else you do. The stronger the foundation... the stronger the structure. Always etch or otherwise properly prepare the substrate!
So this evening I turned up the heat to 77f and the same with the AC, (I have seperate systems) and boy did I take out a lot of water. Tonight I just left the heat on, along with another fan. If I keep this up I might be able to paint wednesday, maybe.
For future reference... while a 'wet' floor is not good to coat... damp is OK for BondTite 1101!
Second mistake is I should have filled the cracks first. From what the website says, the cracks should not need to be filled but lets face it, I knew better. So I will go in and slightly grind the cracks and fill them then put the color on.
We make several products under our IntegraFlex trade name to handle expansion joints and cracks. Most people doing small jobs will pretreat the cracks by mixing a small amount of LiquaTile with fine sand and forcing it into the cracks. Don't expect that to work on large cracks (which is why we make IntegraFlex products). On large cracks the LiquaTile will just disappear into the crack!
Third mistake was either not tinting the primer or not doing two coats of color since I did use a light color. I was under the impression that this epoxy was so thick that it would hide anything. Well that's mostly true, but I did get a little show through, and we even used a notched trowel to spread it out, then a 3/8ths roller to get it nice and even. BTW for the first thirty minutes after you mix, if you pour it out, it will self level somewhat. The primer/ clearcoat definitely self levels. It's not bad at all and I will probably fix it.
The LiquaTile 1184 is designed to be applied in a thick film. In fact, you can apply it up to about 1/2" in one coat! The best way to apply the LiquaTile 1184 is to mix a kit and pour it in even ribbons onto the cured BondTite 1101 primer. Then, you can walk on it with spiked shoes and notch trowel (or roll) it evenly. The work time is always shortened when the 2 mixed components are allowed to sit in the bucket in mass. By pouring the kit on the floor you increase the work time (and leveling time) by at least 4-6 times.
As for the really good stufff I can say at this point I love it. There were barely any fumes when putting it down, it went down easy, and eventhough it is not as thick of a coating that I had hoped for, it is still very thick. Compared to the Griots Garage paint I used several years ago on our old house, this stuff is way thicker. If I had to guess I would say that I am approaching a 1/4".
I might mention the color coat does set up fairly fast. Even a sixty degrees it was starting to get thick at 30 minutes. Still workable but man if I would have done it this summer, I would have wasted part of the first bucket.
Thanks for your kind words Navi. We really appreciate it! From the picture it looks as though you bought about 18 gallons for 1500 square feet... right? That would work about to about 20 mils total which would be 0.021 inches or about 1/48th of an inch. Don't feel bad, if you would have chosen the Rustoleum Epoxy Shield it would have taken 26 gallons and would have needed to be applied in at least 3 coats with about 60 hours of wait time between each coat (@ 60f) to dry at 20 mils. It would have taken about 36 gallons of Supercoat applied in about 6 coats to get 20 mils dry! Again, if the material is poured onto the BondTite 1101 the working time is dramatically increased.
Navi, It looks like you really did a first class job on this! I also wanted to explain that we've never sold to the general public because of the resources it takes to answer technical questions. That is why Bob takes care of his own technical support and we don't answer technical questions when someone calls in. In the industrial world our trained and certified applicators already know how to do just about anything. It's usually a weird circumstance when they need help. Anyway, we have a major 'big box' store that would love to carry our products and we have hired someone (that is still in training) to answer questions in the future. Unfortunately... that didn't do any good for you.
So... next time you have a project let me know and I'll see you get an extra special price and attention!
Eric
