OK, that makes a bit more sense. And sounds like between primer and final product the floor will have a thick coating. And I bet that thickness also improves it's durability and longevity. Is there anything in the product for an anti-skid? To give it a texture? The Rustoleum stuff I used relies on the flakes and you can add an optional product that looks like sand (and might be sand). I used both the flakes and the sand-like anti-skid. Overall I am happy with the result as I don't feel it to be an ice rink when my shoes are wet.

 

That's the hope. The target market is more towards commerical / industrial use, so Im hoping that translates to durability - especially with my much more limited use than those environments. Id really like this to be a one and done for life as it'll be nearly impossible to do again once the garage gets filled with junk.

They include a bunch of bags of their proprietary polymer particles (looks similar to glass bead but super fine - closer to a talc powder consistency) to optionally mix into the clear coat. Im 50/50 on if I'll use them or not. I dont really get water in the garage - it rarely ever rains and Ive got absolutely 0 slope inside, so its not even possible to wash cars in there.

I worry that Ive seen some 'bloopers' after watching dozens of youtube videos of folks either not mixing enough or it settling before they apply it and ending up with cloudy areas of ultra concentrated additive spots / lack of coverage elsewhere (different brand product though). This place claims to use ultralight polymer to help keep them in suspension in the liquid / reduce the rate of settling. I think if I go that route, Ill mix up a 1 cup throwaway batch first to get a feel for how fast it settles with this exact stuff.

 

Sounds like your system has a similar anti-skid material. Mine you mixed that anti-skid powder in the material before painting it on the floor. It might be worth it "just because".

 

I was leaning that way, then saw two more DIY videos tonight (one with my exact product) and both screwed it up - ended up with a handful of ugly blobs of super concentrated anti slip (presumably with bare spots elsewhere). The one was definitely a mixing issue - he stirred it into a ~5 gallon bucket of solution, then poured it out a gallon or so at a time. By the time he got to the last of the bucket, it hadn't been mixed in at least 15 minutes.

I did see one place reccomend broadcasting it like the flake (throw it on dry, then roll on the liquid), but I worry that would leave bare spots wherever you poured out the buckets (as the fluid washes it away).




Made more progress this weekend - got the surfaces all prepped. The surface grinder didnt do what Id hoped. My plan was to over build all of the crack and joint fill, then just flush it all up with that walk behind grinder - wrong...

That machine doesnt like hitting abrupt surface spikes at all - I worried I broke a $40 bit when I went over the first joint it jumped so hard. So I knocked down a high fill section with a masonry wheel (which really wore the wheel out quickly) on a 4" angle grinder and tried the walk behind again. The results were pretty mediocre - it was really struggling to eat into that fill epoxy at any reasonable rate. Not entirely sure why - the must be some pretty hard fill compound.

Ended up having to buy a diamond cup wheel and hand grind all of the fill spots flush first, then come back over it with the walk behind to level everything. That was every bit as miserable as it sounds as it was slow going with the hand grinder.

Overall it came out good in the end though. I was surprised just how bumpy the floor was (as the top 1/16-1/8" of floated cream is a different shade of gray then when you start getting into the actual concrete mix/ aggregate tops- makes it real obvious where the high and low spots are). Downside is you cant really tell while youre grinding as so much dust is still left on the floor, you have to sweep it first to check if you got it all flat. Wish I wouldve had another day with the grinder to get it absolutely perfect flat, but itll be fine enough for a garage.

The dust removal has also been unexpectedly difficult. We swept up all of the loose dust, ran the leaf blower through twice, then concrete vacuumed it twice and you could tell there was still a good bit of dust trapped in the pores.

Washed it twice back to back with water and a broom, but it was still getting out a ton of dust. Washed it again tonight and it much cleaner - probably 90% clean water now. Im going to do it 1 more time tomorrow night before letting it dry for the weekend.

 

When I mixed the anti-skid, using about a gallon of product at a time, I would use my stir stick and mix before I poured. Where I had problems was usually towards the end of the product, the stuff was setting up so when you pour/scrape the last out (as I used buckets from the dollar store to work with), it would leave concentrated trails of anti-skid that did not spread. I get better towards the end of the project (as it took multiple days to do). So far, I am happy how it turned out. See how things are in a couple of years and lots of car projects lol.

Sorry to hear the issues you had with the floor grinder! When I washed my floor, I used a squeegee to push the water out. But I also had to was the acid etch out as well.

I hope that the rest of the project goes better/easier. But I have a feeling you are going to be hustling and busting your butt!

 

Thanks! I think so too. That main epoxy layer has a low side pot life of 15 mins (high of 20), so I think we may do a half size batch on the first run just to see how it goes. Luckily the other two layers are a bit longer.


Got everything cleaned up this week. Ended up taking 4 full broom scrub and rinses to get all of the dust out. We were 100% ready for coating this weekend, but it looks like the weather isnt going to cooperate. Saturday is only a 20% chance but overnight and Sunday are 85%. Due to the recoat windows, this is a 2 day job even on the minimum end, so there's no way to get through it in time.

Not worth risking screwing this up given it's 0% the majority of the year, so we're going to wait another week.


Close up of a joint fill and the grind job - came out pretty good - most of that floated cream layer removed and plenty of surface texture to help the mechanical bonding.

 

Second weekend in a row getting rained out on this project. What bizarre weather lately.

Going to start on the electrical permit instead.

 

We've had an unbelievable amount of rain lately. We got absurdly lucky that our monsoon season (where we normally get most of our annual moisture) was a dud and all of this wetness held off until we got the roof on.

Looks like things should start drying out now - fingers crossed we can put this back on the calendar for the 6th.



Not all was lost though, I did get the electrical permit submitted last night.

Just did it for a very basic setup - plugs for all of the garage door openers, 8 basic overhead lights, and 8 plugs around the permiter. Wiring it for a 100A panel setup for now, but will size the feed wiring / conduit to support up to 150 if I needed to expand down the road.

Downside is the electrical panel Id bought on clearance last year is basically usless. It was a 200A main with tons of slots for breakers, and included half a dozen breakers in the kit. It was on clearance for stupid cheap at Lowes. I figured I could just downgrade the main breaker to whatever number we ended up with for this permit, but still have a panel sized for future upgrades.

Well, that was wrong.

I ordered the matching 100A main breaker and stuck it in when it arrived - popped in with no issues. Went to put the door/cover back on it and it doesnt fit. Apparently their 200A breaker is a new style where the switch / face is offset, and the 100A breaker is the older style / centered face.

They can sell you a whole new cover / door to accommodate this panel size with the centered breaker, but it's $70. The 100A breaker was already $70, so Id basically be $140 into converting this panel (when a whole new one is about that right out of the gate). I took the breaker back the same night.

So I think Im just going to buy a whole new panel for this project. Ill keep the bonus breakers it came with (as that alone is worth more than I paid for it) and toss the bare panel + 200A breaker on offerup for $20 or something.

 

Got the primer coat wrapped up today right at sunset.



That stuff is super runny - defintiely has a lot of solvent base. Supposed to make it bond better by getting into all of the concrete pores.

I feel bad for anyone trying that in an attached garage though - those fumes are no joke.

 

Main color epoxy coat completed.

The super short pot life was tough to deal with - really slowed things down. Had to mix half batches to keep it alive long enough for me to spread it.

Those metered / notched spreaders were a lifesaver for this step. The stuff is super thick - the paint roller struggles to move it around at all outside of knocking down the high spots. But those spreaders made quick work of getting the stuff where it needed to be.

I did have one issue - a roller came apart on the 2nd batch. I saw some FOD in the coating, but it suddenly went from a handful of chunks to 100 before I realized where they were coming from. Scraped a good bit out, but we already had the next batch mixed, so I wasnt able to 100% clean it up. Will try going in with a razor blade and needle nose pliers tomorrow before clear to get as much of the rest as I can.


2 days down, 1 day (ployaspartic clear) to go: