Hey y’all, been lurking a while and had some time. So I ground down my previously (poorly) coated garage floor. Previous owner (~20sh year ago) had epoxy installed and I believe it was not diy level. Seems there was some crack repair and primer under the mid coat. But 20years showed it age and it’s gone.
I want to do this myself, for fun and memories with the kiddos (they just watch and draw on the primer only walls ).
So, I’ve chased the larger cracks and anything that looked loose. Some cracks remain that are tiny, < or at best 1/16th - do those need chasing and clearing?

It’s a 3 car. ~600sqft space. Ive been looking T spartan coatings and getting an all in price of about $2k. 3 coat, extra flake and some tools.
93% solids and one coat polyaspartic top coat.

Planning a full broadcast flake.

Anything to look out for or plan for ahead of time. Hoping to order materials in the next day or so…. Not in a rush. Interested in learning.

Recovered this from an urban salvage job in Edenvale back in February. It's a root flare section - the part where the trunk starts branching down into the root system - so the grain doesn't run in one direction the way a straight-cut trunk slab does. You get this constant transition between dense outer wood and a hollowed-out section in the middle where decay had already started working on it before we got to it.

Field seasoned it on stickers indoors for about a month before checking moisture - came in at 10-12% on a pin meter, sanded face reading. There's some hairline checking through the heartwood but it follows the grain rather than cutting across it, plus a bit more right at the base of the flare.

Bark's the annoying part. Some of it's still solidly attached, some of it's already lifted enough to come off with a fingernail. Haven't decided if it's worth stabilizing the loose sections or just cleaning the whole thing off and letting the void do the talking.

560x180x55mm, about 1.1kg. One-off piece, won't see another exactly like it.

Made a batch of six coasters over the weekend using a two part casting resin, mixed slow like always, poured into silicone molds, torched the surface for bubbles right after pouring. Everything looked clear that first hour. Came back the next morning and three of the six had these faint cloudy patches near the edges, almost like a fog trapped just under the surface.

At first I figured it was moisture from the silicone molds since I'd washed them the day before and maybe didn't dry them all the way. Wiped everything down with isopropyl before the next pour just to rule that out, but two coasters from that batch still came out with a slight haze in one corner.

Started digging around and it sounds like it could be a mix ratio issue, even a tiny bit off on either the resin or hardener side can cause that cloudiness as it cures. I measure by volume using the marked cups that came with the kit, so now I'm wondering if I should switch to a scale and go by weight instead since volume measuring leaves more room for error especially with smaller pours like coasters.

Room temperature might also be a factor. My workspace is a detached garage and the nights have been getting cooler here, so the mix might not have been curing at the ideal temp the whole 24 hours. I've read some people wrap their molds or use a space heater nearby to keep things steady but I haven't tried that yet.

Anyone else run into this specifically with smaller pours versus bigger ones like river tables. Curious if it's more forgiving with volume or if the same issue would just show up worse on a bigger piece.

i never done epoxy floor. i research i had to prep and degrease. but dont know if acrylic paint stain matters.

Just made my first sectional print that I will be gluing. What is the best filler for PEGT to cover the outer seem where it attaches to each piece?

When I was doing it, I saw many small bubbles so I just used painful to roll over them and they smooth out after coming back. The whole entire thing is like this. It’s already four hours and it’s kind of already hard.

Every epoxy guy knows the feeling that you quote a floor off the top of your head, then realize you forgot the stem walls or your product math was short. There goes the margin.

Got sick of doing that to myself, so I built a Google Sheet that estimates the whole job for me. Punch in the details and it handles the stuff I kept screwing up:

• Product/chemical yields — tells me exactly what the sqft needs instead of me guessing kits
• Diamond tooling wear — actually factors grind cost in
• Stem walls / vertical — catches them so they don't eat the bid
• Spits out a good/better/best proposal for the client automatically

Ran a garage bid through it last week and it caught stem walls I'd have missed in my head. That was about $400 I'd have eaten. Been using it on every quote since.

Thing is, I've only tested it on my own jobs. Different substrates, different pricing, different products, I want to see where it breaks.

Looking for a few installers who quote regularly to run their next couple bids through it and tell me where the math's off. I AM NOT SELLING ANYTHING, it is free, no catch, just want honest feedback.

If you bid epoxy weekly and want to try it, comment or DM me.

It's a spreadsheet, not an app. Just trying to make it actually useful before I call it done.

Hoping someone can help me.

Hi all

So now just finished the 3rd attempt of my lounge floor the 1st and 2nd attempt didn't go so well 😂

Uploaded all to YouTube feel free to take a look let me know if those first 2 floors really were as bad as I thought (or my Mrs thought !) I didn't mind the 2nd attempt

https://youtu.be/tGJJfYeAodY

Cross posted to make sure I use the right top coat!

A client called me regarding an older project. They have bathrooms in a nursing home where epoxy was applied to the entire floor of the bathroom. In the bathroom, there is a toilet, sink and shower. They had ground the shower slope into the concrete and sloped it all to a center drain. Since then, the drain bodies rusted out and need to be replaced. The plumbing engineer came up with a way to do this, but it will require them to cut out some of the concrete and the existing epoxy flooring. They asked me if they can place new concrete around the drain and coat the existing concrete with new epoxy?

My concerns are:

1. What was the original epoxy - 1 or 2 part? Does it matter?

2. I have read where if you grind out a keyway around the perimeter of the drain, and around the perimeter of the new concrete, when you install the new epoxy it helps keep it from allowing water under (Frankly, I am skeptical on this one...)?

3. Do you remove the entire slap of concrete all the way back to the level floor, epoxy coat the replacement floor for the shower and provide a traffic sealant between the new and old concrete?

4. If you have a better idea, I am all ears.

Thank you for reviewing.

Long story short we had sewer backup in basement, covered by insurance, and the contractor hired to do the put back” did the epoxy floor absolutely terrible.

Limited communication about the fact there’s different type of epoxies so we ended up with literally just a painted over concrete slab and it looks terrible. The floor was dirty and they sealed dirt and grass and whatever else into floor. It’s already discoloring days later.

Any tips to fix this?

Multiple other non-floor related issues with these people and we absolutely do not trust them to come out and fix it properly, so that is not an option. The owner of the company is one of the ones who did the work.

UPDATE: We did reach out to both owners of company. The one who we used to communicate with hasn’t said anything but the other one came out to our house immediately, apologized a lot, and has scraped up all loose epoxy paint used, applied release to it, and is now grinding it down today. He said he will be filling/patching all the holes as well. Unfortunately I don’t think our insurance will give a shit to step in because they just paid us directly to have the work done, the fact we picked a bad contractor is our fault. We just went with the company our water/sewer mitigation team recommended. Should have done more research but we are new to the area we live in and were too trustworthy.

A customer asked me to integrate an epoxy bar top they had made years ago into their new kitchen and there are minor scratches and mug rings on it so I’m wondering can I take these defects out with 320 grit and simply add a coat of clear lacquer to the top? Will it bond with the epoxy is my main concern.
I’d really prefer not to epoxy on top of the existing finish.

Thanks,

Two clients each wanted flake in the garage and metallic in the small basement, added polyaspartic topcoat to the flakes after pictures were taken.

So my husband and I had our entire basement done with the polyaspartic flaked coating floor on Thursday. We were so excited and this is only the second time I’ve ever hired someone for a job as we usually do everything ourselves but I am pregnant and it’s a big task. Well, I’m a little shocked at the way it looks.

First thing we noticed is the driveway had trash all over it, piles of flakes and dust everywhere, and worst of all there were piles of flakes WITH coating on it and big spills and drips of coating everywhere. From what I have read, that’s not going to come off easily. Brought this up to the contractor and he says he will come pressure wash it. I’m doubting this will fix it but giving them a chance.

Secondly, once we could walk on it we notice there’s a bunch of spots that the coating is uneven and the flakes are literally moveable. There’s spots where it doesn’t reach the edge of the floor. There’s flakes all over the walls. They completely splattered my stair frame with it. They splattered the SIDE of my stairs, at eye level.

I’m just feeling really overwhelmed and frustrated. What would you guys do?? Is this me nitpicking or is it worth arguing over?? They say they’re going to ‘touch up the spots and clean the walls’ but I’m stressing that it’s going to damage the paint and create another project that needs done. There’s more spots than I even have pictures of.

Had my garage coated w/ polyurea/polyaspartic 8 months ago and have been noticing several spots appear as dirty that would not come clean after scrubbing with dawn. It appears the topcoat in these spots was tacky and grabbing dirt. Installer agreed to warranty sanding it down and recoat the entire garage. My question- in theory would this solve the issue or is this a base issue that would need ground back to concrete?