Removing old sealer

[Gotgone]

6 years ago I applied concrete sealer I got from a local concrete supplier. Prior to applying it I scrubbed the floor and then etched it. When I applied the sealer using a roller, I had a lot of fisheyes. I assume this means the the floor wasn't free of all contaminates. I originally was going to sand the finish and then apply new sealer. Problem is sanding just heats the sealer which gums up the sand paper. I tried stripper which works but is too messy. I did a search tonight and found a tip on removing sealer. The suggestion was to lay a sheet down on the floor and soak it with xylene or laquer thinner. Let the liquid dry and lift the sheet. The sealer liquifies and sticks to the sheet. Thought it was worth a shot so I cut an old pillow case in half and tried it. Works pretty good. Used both halves on two places. One removed all the sealer and the other got up about 90%. Asked the boss if she had any old sheets. Got a few and went to Wally World and bought some $6.00 cheapies. Bought 3 gal of thinner from HD and will start stripping in earnest tomorrow.
I was originally going to use the same sealer I put down 6 years ago. After checking here I am thinking about the H & C sealer with a grey color added. There is a Sherwin Williams store here so I should be able to find it locally. There are oil stains on the floor that show through the original sealer. That is why I thought a colored sealer would hide the stains. Does anyone have any experience with H & C? Is there another sealer that you folks recommend? I am not at all interested in an epoxy coating. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[somky]

Bed sheet tip sounds interesting. Thanks for sharing it.

H & C Concrete Sealer Thread...
http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9821

 

[sjsfire]

I did a colored sealer in my garage made by Butterfield, it is also Xylene based. I was told that when I wanted to recoat all I'd have to do is clean it real good and reapply. The Xylene will react and it should mix well with the old sealer. The only thing is you won't be able to change colors. Example is if you have a black floor and want to change to white your sealer will mix and give you a gray color. I had a Xylene based clear on my floor at first but not knowing any better I rented a EDCO floor grinder at $100 for the day and took it down to bare concrete. I too had problems with appling the sealer. Started out with a rolller as recommended and got air bubbles, tried a paint pad and that didn't work so good. Then I ended up mopping it on with a commercial type janitor mop, wringer, and bucket. It worked ok. Be carefull with the Xylene with the fumes. I opted for the grinder. A little dusty but I probably saved some brain cells.

 

[Gotgone]

Thought about renting a grinder, but thought I would give sheets a try. I will let you all know how it does. If you hear an explosion in southern Indiana, you will know it was me. Only have 2 brain cells left so what the heck. Maybe I will have the Boss ( wife ) stand guard.

 

[Gotgone]

Thought I would post an update to the sheet trick. Works pretty good. One problem I found is using full sheets, you will get wrinkles in it. Wherever there are wrinkles no sealer is removed. I started cutting the sheets in thirds and smoothing the wrinkles after pouring the thinner. Seems to work much better.
If I can figure out how to post pics, I will post results.