Just a few blocks from the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville’s non-profit “Rocketown” offers young people a drug- and alcohol-free venue that includes a concert hall, indoor skateboard park, and some really old concrete floors.
The facility got pro bono help with the floors March 14-17, as two Craftsman -level accreditation courses taught by the Concrete Polishing Association of America swept through, in conjunction with the Concrete Decor Show.
CPAA instructors Brad Burns, First American Floor Co., Grapevine, Texas; Roy Bowman, and George Gooch, Concrete Visions Inc., Tulsa, Okla.; and Derek Mackenzie, Floor Lab, Toronto, Calif., taught the back-to-back two-day courses. Reps from CPAA member companies supported the training with donated equipment and supplies, including PROSOCO’s Joe Reardon and 25 gallons of Consolideck® LS® (Lithium-Silicate) Hardener/Densifier.
Along with Rocketown’s aged concrete floors, two classes of concrete professionals — mostly flatwork and polishing contractors, Brad said — were the beneficiaries of the training. Along with hours of hands-on training on real-world floors, participants got classroom training in “The Polishing Process,” “The Science of Polished Concrete,” “Estimating Polished Concrete and more.
The Monday-Tuesday class took on the abused and deteriorating 2500 square-foot concrete floor in Rocketown’s first-floor coffee bar.
Pre-polishing repair work to the floor included treatment with Consolideck® LS® (Lithium-Silicate) Hardener-Densifier, following grinding with 80-grit metals. Husqvarna GM300 grout went down to further improve the surface for polishing after grinding with 150-grit metals. The two treatments did the trick, and the formerly soft surface ended with a hard, shiny 1500 resin finish.
The Wednesday-Thursday class faced its own challenge, Brad said. They had to lift some heavy-duty machines — the STI Prepmaster 2417 and the HTC 650HDX — with a Skytrack crane to the 2nd-floor mezzanine overlooking the skateboard area.
The 1,000 square feet of mezzanine concrete was in much better shape than the coffee bar, Brad said. Other than location, and a thin gray surface coating which ground off easily, it presented no obstacles.
Along with the class participants, Brad said, the crew at Rocketown and the Concrete Decor Show were great to work with and helped tremendously.
“Everyone put in long hours and worked extremely hard to advance the education, benefits and aesthetics of polished concrete,” Brad said.
For more information about the Concrete Polishing Association’s schedule of classes and registration procedure, visit the Education page on the group’s website.
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Hi:
Currently we are in the process of resurfacing our concrete driveway, using Super Diamond Clear manufactured by Euclid Chemical Co. This product is going to be discontinued
in the near future as it is not environmental friendly.
Can you tell me if you have a product that can be used on our driveway in the future, that is compatible with the Super Diamond product we now have on our driveway.
Will water-based products adhere to the finish we now have on our driveway?
We live in Stratford, ON, Canada. Do you have a distributor who sells your products in the area?
We really need to know more about your products and whether we will be able to use them in the future and who handles them.
Looking forward to your reply.
Thank you.
Hi Ferne,
Our concrete products group specialist Joe Reardon tells me there is always a possibility two different products may not like each other. That said, he’s confident we have some products that can do the job for you. We’ll need to know what kind of finish you’re looking for — glossy or natural — and what you feel is the biggest threat to your driveway — grease and oil stains? De-icing salts? Rain? I’ve asked Joe to e-mail you about these issues, so you should be hearing from him soon.
Form & Build Supply in Kitchener is probably our closest distributor to you. Their phone is 519-743-2210. You can also check our website at http://www.prosoco.com/internationalDistributors.asp for the other distributors near Stratford — there are several.
Good luck and thanks for getting in touch.
gary