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Wearing down aluminum chromate (or oxide)

mrkapasi

New member
Joined
Jan 20, 2021
Messages
1
Location
TX
Hi folks,

My parents moved into a new home and hired an epoxy flooring guy to put epoxy with chips and anti-slip grit onto the garage floor. The installer said the grit is aluminum chromate, although I couldn't find an online reference to aluminum chromate with regards to epoxy flooring grit. I'm guessing the grit is aluminum oxide.

In any case, the grit turned out to be *much* sharper and prominent than what my parents had expected, based on the samples they had a chance to see and feel. They don't want to slip, of course. But on the other hand, the aggressiveness of the grit is going to make cleaning and mopping difficult, the floor will scratch or tear up anything my parents need to drag across the floor, and if my parents fall they could get scraped up badly.

Will the grip mellow out over time just through normal wear and tear?

If not, I'm wondering if I could (should? should not?) manually wear down the grit, just to round it oout a bit and remove some of the sharpness, by pulling a weighted piece of wood/plastic/metal back and forth over the floor.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Armorpoxy

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 18, 2013
Messages
3,735
Location
NJ
Hi
Aluminum oxide is very tough and would be difficult to make less gritty since it's designed to have grit under industrial applications and is a very hard aggregate. In our opinion wood or plastic would be a waste of time since they are softer than the oxide, but grinding it without severely damaging the floor would be almost impossible.

The only solution we could think of is to rent a small 7" Diamabrush for a hand grinder and lightly work it to see how that works since the diamond pads are harder than the oxide. Then you can re-topcoat it.

But a more important question is that if the floor texture does not match the samples shown to your parents, the should have the contractor come and re-do it. Often the threat of bad reviews online can work wonders in getting them back.
 
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Garage Flooring

ALLIANCE MEMBER
Joined
May 21, 2011
Messages
5,288
Location
Grand Junction, CO
Hi folks,

My parents moved into a new home and hired an epoxy flooring guy to put epoxy with chips and anti-slip grit onto the garage floor. The installer said the grit is aluminum chromate, although I couldn't find an online reference to aluminum chromate with regards to epoxy flooring grit. I'm guessing the grit is aluminum oxide.

In any case, the grit turned out to be *much* sharper and prominent than what my parents had expected, based on the samples they had a chance to see and feel. They don't want to slip, of course. But on the other hand, the aggressiveness of the grit is going to make cleaning and mopping difficult, the floor will scratch or tear up anything my parents need to drag across the floor, and if my parents fall they could get scraped up badly.

Will the grip mellow out over time just through normal wear and tear?

If not, I'm wondering if I could (should? should not?) manually wear down the grit, just to round it oout a bit and remove some of the sharpness, by pulling a weighted piece of wood/plastic/metal back and forth over the floor.

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Lightly sand the floor and add top coat
 
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