YAWF (Yet Another Wolverine Floor)

[Ovidiu]

Alright, well it's time for me to describe my experience installing my Wolverine floor, along with hopefully helpful tips for people installing this great stuff. I want to also thank Fred, just like everyone else did, for the awesome support and working with me to get something working within my constraints and challenges.

I have a ~700 sqft. garage, 3 car with a decent ledge on the side and back of the garage. When I first started on the floor, it was in pretty rough shape, mountains and valleys, lots of cracks, I would say quite the challenge to get something nice out of. More on that later.

Anyway, I've decided to do my garage in 2 different applications, for a variety of reasons. I wanted to do a smaller portion first make sure I have the process down and everything, wanted to see how it comes out, get a bit of experience with the product, didn't have the entire thing fully prepped, etc... I did the ledge first (~150+ sqft), then 2-3 weeks later the garage floor (~550 sqft). I'm not completely done yet, As of Superbowl Sunday I have the ledge done and the floor Integraflex'ed, patched and BondTite'd.


Wolverine products used:
BondTite 1101
TrowelEase for patching holes, scarifier marks.
LiquaTile (sand color)
Deco Flakes: a mix of 10 lbs white, 10 lbs black, 20 lbs chocolate and 20 lbs island tan. I ended up using A LOT less than I bought, I'll have to weigh them and see what's left.


Tips:

DO NOT SCRAPE THE SIDES of the mixing container, especially with the IntegraFlex and LiquaTile, since the products are so viscous and it may not mix properly on the sides of the container. When I did the ledge (2-3 weeks ago I think), I mixed the LiquaTile really good in the plastic graded containers from Lowes. On the floor, it hardened up really good within 24h everywhere, however on the bucket, the sides hardened and the very bottom remained liquid to this day. I can't imagine what would have happened had I scraped the container.

Mix the black portion of the IntegraFlex. I know you're gonna mix everything individually before putting the resin/hardner together, but REALLY mix the black Integraflex portion, since it separates pretty quick and chances are your kit comes with a already separated hardner.

Someone mentioned having a hard time measuring the Integraflex since both parts are pretty thick. What I've done is used 2 spoons, 1 for each product and spooned it in the mixing cup like you would do with honey. Also, I mixed 16oz at a time, since we really couldn't keep a larger quantity workable for long enough to use it all.

For the IntegraFlex application, I've found that it works best if you put more (read: a lot more) on top of the crack/expansion joint or what have you and let it set. We came back about 12-16h later and got a hard spackle and just scraped the excess off. Assuming your concrete is pretty even, the IntegraFlex will now be perfectly even with the surrounding concrete, plus the shiny top part will be gone. We found this to be pretty helpful as well since the IntegraFlex has such a short pot life it's hard to get any sort of detailed work done with it. Just pour it in there and make sure you have it in the cracks, clean up after it's hardened.

I've seen someone mention this before, but I've had some air bubbles form in the BondTite. I am firmly convinced that this was because of very small pores in the concrete that got filled with product and the thin layer of BT on top trapped the air, thus forming the bubble. What's worked well for me to fix this was to hold onto the roller I used to spread it with and come back about an hour later and run the roller over the entire surface again. This got rid of the bubbles and evened out the sticky product even more.


Other prep materials:

I've used pretty much the recommended materials, no need to mention those again. I will mention I've used LOTS of measuring cups, but that's probably just me. Also, when I did the ledge, since it was such a small surface, I've used a smaller roller (6" I think) that Lowes and HD say it's for cabinets. It's a foam roller and I think it's performed admirably, probably even better than the somewhat fluffy 9" roller I am using for the floor.

<pic of roller>

To broadcast the flakes, I made myself a nice shaker :cough:. Yeah, it's basically a Walmart forest cake lid, drilled with about 10-15 large holes and I used it to broadcast the flakes. I found that this gives me really good control over where the flakes fall, so I got them pretty even on the whole.

<pic of shaker>


Dislikes so far:

- pot life for IntegraFlex, even TrowelEase. With the IntegraFlex especially, it sets really quick, there's hardly any time to fix any errors or anything before it becomes too sticky to do anything with it. With the TrowelEase, if you're patching small imperfections, it takes a bit of time and you have to be pretty quick about it as well. That said, when it works, it works admirably, I love the stuff.
I was afraid to actually play with the resin/hardner ratio, since I was unsure that it would even set at and didn't really want to experiment on my own. College time was for that and that's behind me. It would be pretty helpful if these 2 products came with a graph on how the resin/hardner ratio affected the pot life and the cure time. I would imagine for someone like me, I would have totally waited an extra day after the Integraflex application just to be able to work with it ~20 min instead of 10.

- sand that came with the TrowelEase was a bit too coarse in my opinion. It worked pretty good for a big-ish hole that I wanted to fill in, but it left the top pretty rough. I bought some fine play sand from Lowes that worked really good with the TrowelEase on small defects and some scarifier marks that were still visible.

Pics are gonna be uploaded soon, hopefully.

 

[AlphaGarage]

Some good points and tips!

About the DecoFlakes quantities... With 700 ft2 and 60 lbs of DecoFlakes the ratio is about .085 lb per ft2. We spec .1 lb/ft2 as a medium broadcast. They have some density samples at the WCC site http://www.wolverinecoatings.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1012.

Looking forward to the pictures to see what the density looks like.

Good point on not scraping the sides or bottom. Of course that refers to when you go to remove the mixed material from the mixing container. When you're actually mixing it, you do want to try get every bit from the sides and bottom into the mix. But when you empty the container onto the floor, you do not want to scrape the sides and bottom.

That's because there's always the chance that some hardener or resin was missed during the mixing step, and you don't want any of that getting into your coating, where it may never fully harden. For that same reason you should not turn the mixing container upside down on the floor in order to get out the last drops. There's a picture of a huge warehouse floor where every few hundred feet there's a round mark on the floor, marks from where the workers turned over the mixing pails and the epoxy didn't harden.

A few other folks have mentioned getting good results with the foam brushes, especially when applying EnduraShield 2254 - we haven't tried them out yet.

We do advise that both components be mixed individually before combining. That's always a good idea and should definitely be done with the IntegraFlex since it does tend to separate a bit.

You are right about the pot life- if it's extended so is the cure time. Clearly there's a trade off involved, and we shoot for the best all around cure rate.

There might be enough flexibility in the IntegraFlex formulation to alter the ratio in order to extend the potlife. We'll look into it. But for now do not venture from the prescribed ratios. Variations beyond certain parameters will compromise the performance.

We have looked into offering the TrowelEase without the sand, it certainly would reduce the shipping costs if nothing else.

 

[Ovidiu]

Fred, as I mentioned in the beginning, my experience was overall wonderful. My "dislikes" are very minor, but I pointed them out for 2 reasons:
- so others know what to expect when they use the TE/IF
- so you guys (Wolverine) can look into possibly improving the products or offer alternatives. I mentioned the different mixing ratios because I know for example with automotive putty, they give you the recommended mixing ratio, but it is perfectly acceptable to use more or less hardner to adjust the pot life. I would think if this is the case, someone tackling the repair job as a separate project with possible days between this and the epoxy application would be fine with having a 2-3 day cure time.

I suppose I should have pointed out how good the stuff actually works and how money it looks when it's all done (as I said, the ledge has been cured for a while now). I am overly impressed with the overall experience and the results and would recommend this to anybody that asks.

As for the density of the flakes, I guess I just like the LiquaTile color a lot and didn't want to cover it up too much.

Trying to upload pics somewhere right meow.

 

[Dave88LX]

For that same reason you should not turn the mixing container upside down on the floor in order to get out the last drops. There's a picture of a huge warehouse floor where every few hundred feet there's a round mark on the floor, marks from where the workers turned over the mixing pails and the epoxy didn't harden.

I'm curious about this statement. When we did my floor, we poured it out of the mixing pail in ribbons on the floor. Are you saying this is OK, but just not to sit there with the bucket upside to get every last drop out?

 

[AlphaGarage]

Pouring it out is fine, setting it upside down and leaving it that way... not so fine. Any unmixed stuff clinging to the sides isn't going to pour out with the rest of the mixed stuff, but if the container is left to sit there eventually everything will seep down. Think of a ketchup bottle.