My Wolverine coating problem

[stevanrk]

Dear all,

After doing my research on epoxy floors for my garage, I decided on Wolverine through Alphagarage. Fred was very helpful with all my questions as others have experienced, until I ran into a problem. I will not bore anyone with my garage. It was around 650 square feet and my wife decided on the color chip blend and wanted a near complete coverage with chips (almost to rejection). Got 90 pounds of chips and all other material along with sand beige liquatile. My problem is that certain areas of the floor ended up with pooling of liquatile such that when I went to distribute the chips they simply sunk into these pools and I ran out. The end result was less than satisfactory. The areas that took the chips properly ended up looking awesome, but the inconsistency will bug me for as long as I own this home.

I was a little surprised at a couple of Fred's comments though when I called him about this specifically. First he mentioned that I probably should have used a 9 inch roller, but everywhere I look, including this forum and the instructions calls for a 18 inch roller. Second, I thought the 'kits' would contain what other kits on the market contain, including the squeegee, gloves, etc, but none of that is included. When it arrived I was dissapointed, but then looked online to find out that it doesn't mention it anywhere so this was my mistake. I contacted Fred prior to beginning the work, about the lack of a notched squeegee and he mentioned that he doesn't use them for floors less than 1000sqft and simply rolls it out with an 18inch roller. So I was happy with that. If I had to do this again, I would definitely use and recommend the notched squeegee. Rolling the liquatile out is very difficult. The pressure required on the roller that I was applying ended up popping the roller cover off the frame several times and this was still not enough pressure to make sure the product was dispersed evenly. You need the squeegee to disperse the product evenly, then rolling shouldn't be a problem, nor should it require much effort. Again, I did what Fred said should work, and it didn't. My floor was troweled smooth and 'looked' perfectly flat prior to grinding and acid etching and after those treatments, so I had no reason to believe that there would be pooling and I have never noticed anyone on this forum check with a long straight edge anyways.

So when I called Fred about this problem right after the liquatile step and before applying the endurashield, I was told that I probably should have used a 9 inch roller and I should not be a perfectionist. I e-mailed the attached picture just before calling him, but he never recieved it during the call and have not heard back from him since. My wife put up with my junk in one of the bedrooms for nearly a month while I was getting everything prepped. I also almost ended up taking a vacation for this job prematurely, because the shipment was delayed almost a week (UPS had a train derailment AND more delays due to some flooding). Two natural disasters that prevents you from getting any compensation from UPS. I am posting my experience and would like to know what others think of the color differences, that are to me at least, too much and very noticeable. I still recommend the product, but highly recommend getting the notched squeegee to ensure even coverage. I don't know about the 9 inch roller idea since I haven't seen anyone else do it that way. I will try to upload a pic with the endurashield which gives everything a nice gloss, but doesn't hide the color differences at all. The next post is from my wife who really wants to chime in as well even though she mentions pretty much the same things. She wears the pants and I run around naked...

Regards,
Stevan

 

[stevanrk]

Here's my wife's version:

I am the wife. Let me start by saying Gals, dont try this alone so that you can blame your husband if its not perfect. Key point that i learned: Even if you think your floor is even, it is not: using the 18 inch roller brush to apply the liquatile at the recommended dose caused pooling of liquatile on the floor. This was not noticeable until we added the chips and saw that there was areas of hyper absorption where the liquatile kept bleeding through. We were going for a very high density chip application... I would have either applied the liquiatile differently or used a darker coat color that did not provide as much contrast with the chips. Given how carefully we did the floor, i think it would have been very difficult to eliminate the pooling altogether, so color would have been a major saving grace. When we scraped off the excess chips post hardening, we could not eliminate the dappling effect and now, after all this work, it looks not so great.

Lora

 

[Edger]

Sounds like the product was too thick and too viscous (sticky). Epoxy can be hard to roll, but should not be to the extent that you indicate. Has anyone else used this coating?

 

[Bad Idea]

I don't think the clear coat will hide that. A broadcast to near rejection is very difficult for a beginer to do. It is much easier to broadcast to refusal and sweep up the excess. It is also more expensive. I do not have experience with the Alpha coatings, but I have plenty of experience installing floors. It looks like a combination of uneven material thickness and not enough flake to hide the basecoat.

I'm sorry that turned out so uneven. I know it takes a lot of work to get where you are now and to have a sub par result has to hurt. When we have to fix something like that, we do a coat of clear, broadcast more flakes and then do a coat of clear over the whole floor. It is a very expensive solution.

 

[stevanrk]

Thanks bad idea,

I had the same 'good idea', lol. The areas that look normal had excess flakes sitting on top and when I was done, I looked and saw areas that looked less covered so threw more flakes there, but they kept sinking until I was left with no more flakes. I had the same idea of casting flakes on top of the endurasheild clearcoat, then adding another clear on top of that to help, but Fred didn't recommend that. He recommended scuffing up everything, which would affect the current chips, then do the primer layer with chips and clear over that. I poured out the product and made 3-4 inch ribbons on the floor and dispersing these ribbons was the hardest part. This is why I recommend the notched squeegee to guarantee even distribution.

Thanks Edger,

The product never had a chance to solidify during the entire procedure. It was in the 50-60s when I did this and I did the whole garage in quarters. Looking back I could have probably been comfortable doing it in two halfs.

 

[Bad Idea]

It was in the 50-60s when I did this

That could be your problem. Some epoxies get viscous at lower temperatures and can be very difficult to roll out evenly. If the air temperature was in the 50s, the slab temperature was likely lower and the material can get thick quickly when poured on a cold slab.

I am glad you checked with wolverine before taking my advice, as every manufacturer is different and they know their own products best.

 

[Edger]

Now I know your problem, we used to stack the epoxy on cold days in a bathroom with a blow heater overnight to make it flow more and mix easier the next day. At low temperatures it was nearly impossible to roll and took twice as long to cure if we did not.

 

[AlphaGarage]

We do spec 9 - 18 inch rollers in our instructions, and with a large floor 18" rollers do make the task go quicker. But on an undulating floor they can cause uneven coverage. BTW A squeegee would not solve that, might even make it worse.

I generally don't even use the squeegee for floors under 1,000 ft2, just don't think they're worth the effort to clean them. Then again the squeegee I use has a replaceable blade and takes a few minutes to disassemble and clean, if I was using one of the ones most places carry, including us, I'd probably just toss it after the LiquaTile coat. And then some people will assume that because the notches are calibrated to dispense the proper amount of material they won't need to pay attention to square footage and the amount they mix - that can cause problems because if you apply too much or too little pressure you can end up with very uneven coverage - in my experience more so than with a roller. Complicating matters is that the squeegee's about 18inches wide, so with an uneven floor you can still have the same issue of too little coating on the crests, and too much in the valleys. On the other hand I do like the squeegee because of the viscosity of the LiquaTile. It has a lot of ceramic content, a lot. That makes it very thick and it can be tiring on the arms to spread it around. The squeegee does help there. But you should still measure and double measure to make sure you have the right amount of material for the section you're working on.

As far as the 18 inch rollers, I may just delete mentioning them in the instructions. I have a real nice professional 18" frame - built like a tank. However from what I've heard it's very difficult to find a good frame anymore. This isn't the first time that someone's reported an 18" frame breaking. And LiquaTile will probably test them to their limits.

As far as flake density... I know a few pros who will recommend either a very light broadcast, or a full broadcast - they avoid medium densities because they've had bad experiences with uneven results. I don't mind doing medium densities - but even now I still toss a few test hands before to make sure I still have the rhythm. And always toss small amounts, you can go back and toss down more, but you can't pick 'em up.

 

[thegarageguy]

What happens when its cold is that the epoxy doesn't quite flow and level out as nice or takes longer to flatten out. Seems you chipped it before it leveled out and now looks like a blotchy bad broadcast job. Some areas have more flake than other or more base coat exposed and since the base coat is not quite the color of the chips it makes it painfully obvious. Re broadcast with clear epoxy and it'll even out. It's Def an application error, not product problem.

 

[stevanrk]

Thanks to all who posted. I am admitting user error and if you read my initial post I still recommend the product. However, I am also admitting that I was a little mislead by both other people's experiences and some contradicting statements. For example, when I was grinding the floor down and acid etching, I should have noticed areas that weren't ground up or pooling of acid and water, but it was pretty darn even. All other users that I read were in the warmer climates where the cold factor didn't play a role. I never knew that colder weather could affect things, and definitely thought it was ideal with temps in the 50-60s since the product says apply between 40-90F. I was even told to get the product out as quickly as possible onto the floor, which I did, with no mention of colder temps affecting the viscosity. I can only imagine the nightmare at 40F. Now I am at a loss since I thought I should get the squeegee, but Fred is stating that a 9 inch roller would have sufficed. Also, Fred's statement above of adding a little flake at a time was exactly what I did, however that was not my problem since I kept adding to the problem areas and it kept swallowing the flakes up. I never wanted less flake, I wanted more, but shouldn't have needed it. Anyways, I am trying to get some consensus form everyone on what went wrong and the only thing I am seeing now is the colder temps making it too viscous. This corresponds to the poured out ribbons being difficult to spread out with the 18inch roller which also made me wish I had a squeegee to push it around a lot easier. I still think the squeegee would have solved my particular problem. I don't think the floor was uneven due to my comments above. It was simply too viscous. The last post commenting on redistributing flakes over clear is also what I addressed with Fred before I applied the clear, but he did not recommend this as the time taken to get another batch of flakes would have required roughing up the current chips thus messing them up. Fred did not recommend this approach either. I hope someone else in my climate zone takes note of my mistakes and learns from them. Again I admit to some user error, not product failure. I don't think I could have known about the colder temps and viscosity. Thanks again to all. I am attaching the final pics with the endurashield.

 

[thegarageguy]

Again, if you want it to look better, sand down with a 36 to 60 grit (knock off the shine), solvent wipe and re coat, re broadcast and re top coat.

It's tough to see but it looks like you used a finer or smaller chip or at least smaller that 1/4 inch, is that correct? If so, it's tougher to get those fine chips to fully cover on only one broadcast.

Don't be so discouraged, I've seen pro jobs with similar looks.

 

[fat rat 56]

Again, if you want it to look better, sand down with a 36 to 60 grit (knock off the shine), solvent wipe and re coat, re broadcast and re top coat.

It's tough to see but it looks like you used a finer or smaller chip or at least smaller that 1/4 inch, is that correct? If so, it's tougher to get those fine chips to fully cover on only one broadcast.

Don't be so discouraged, I've seen pro jobs with similar looks.

What machine would you recomend to use with the 36-60 grit?

Reason I ask, I have a floor 10 years old that I want to redue.

 

[thegarageguy]

head over to a rental center and p/u a square buffer, works like a charm. Just make sure it's de glossed well..no shiny spots.

 

[mikeyr]

Put the lathe over the big spot on the left, the mill on the middle spot, do some welding over the other areas and general wrenching on the remaining visible areas and in less than a month, the floor will look uniform.

Its a garage !!! work in it.

And yes, I get mad every time I tear up a Racedeck tile with weld splatter or gouge it with some heavy machinery but in the end its a garage, your floor looks fine to me, a month or 2 and it will be all better.

 

[stevanrk]

Thanks thegarageguy and mikeyr.

Redoing it (which I agree is the only way to fix this) would require all three coats and chips again and would cost another ~1700, plus buckets, roller covers, more sanding... Would get a darker base coat next time and extra chips for good measure

Mikeyr, that is funny. I was thinking about a lemonade stand in the middle of the garage.

 

[stevanrk]

Oh and the chips are about 1/4 inch, but do vary a bit.

 

[TheGunCollector]

I'd wait 1-3 months before you do anything. If it still bothers you after this time, take corrective actions. More than likely, like another poster mentioned, A. You'll probably never notice it once the garage fills up, and B. You'll learn to live in a non perfect world. I know, as I'm a perfectionist too, and would feel the same as you, but I've learned that nothing in life is perfect.

Good luck, I think it looks fine.

 

[v7guy]

another vote for give it some time. my floor didnt turn out perfect. I barely notice it now and everyone else thinks it looks great. the burn marks from the welding spatter help too lol

i've thought about sanding and recoating the welding area, not sure if it's worth it.

 

[PontiacFan]

Another vote for 'give it some time', ...
It's a learning process for the DIY'er.
If you wanted an expert job, ..., maybe you should've hired an expert to come in & do it.
Don't take that the wrong way, but you know what I mean?
I don't mean it as a smart-*** comment, but a realistic approach to an accomplished expected finish.
Yes, a 'professional' install could also lead to unsatisfactory results. But then they are responsible for fixing it if it does not satisfy.

I think ya did fine. Just move some stuff, & start using it.
If for some reason after a few months you're still not happy about, ..., well you already know what to do.

 

[xrdad]

Re occurring theme happening...

Give it some time.

Once you start working over the floor, parking the cars, working on other projects.. the floor will just be and you'll still appreciate the easy clean up and other benefits of Epoxy.

I also have the problem of dreaming something up and then being disappointed with the final result because it didn't quite match the dream... see my post on 'Eiffel tower build'...
In the end, I think I'd be satisfied that you got a great floor (looks fine to me) and got to do something with your SO.. Tends to balance to the good side, no?

 

[markvfr]

One more for giving time. I just recently finished my wolverine floor as well and my flake dispersion is less than stellar and the uneven distribution bothered me to no end right after the job. Now, three weeks later, I couldn't care less. Can't even tell unless I'm looking for it.

Enjoy the floor!