Concrete Crafters Unite: Exploring Humidity, Pigments, and RammCrete Innovation

Welcome to The Concrete Podcast, where we're getting into the nitty-gritty details, like how humidity can make or break your masterpiece. Ever wondered about pigment loading and saturation? We've got you covered. And trust me, you don't want to mess around with sealer protocols! But hold onto your work boots, folks, because we're about to blow your mind with RammCrete. Developed by Brandon Gore, this method is opening up a whole new world of possibilities for designers. Just check out the jaw-dropping sink by the maestro, Sirgo Rojas – it's a work of art. So grab a drink, sit back, and let's explore the wild, wonderful world of concrete together. Cheers!

 TRANSCRIPT:

0:14

You ready?

I am.

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Oh, that was awfully tame.

Start.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

Do.

You want me to do it again?

Yeah, dude, get some energy, man.

Need some energy.

It's fucking it's Tuesday.

It's springtime.

0:32

Hello, Jon Schuler.

There you go.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

How's it going?

It's going great, man.

It's great.

Good to hear, Good to hear.

You know what I did yesterday?

No, hit me with it.

I took a turd that was in a box to UPS store to ship it to a laboratory.

0:52

Oh, what?

Is that Did you walk in with like a the the big smile on your face too?

Just be like hey and then hand it to somebody.

We're living in the future, bro.

Living in the future.

You can you can poop in a box and ship it to a laboratory.

1:09

Yeah, Cologuard.

Cologuard.

My doctor was like, hey, you know, you're 45.

We we should do a colonoscopy.

I'm like, let's ease up on that.

Let's let's take baby steps.

Let's not just go, you know, right to the fun stuff.

1:25

So anyways, but yeah, I went to The UPS Store and the guy in front of me, cola guard box, 'cause they haven't branded the boxes, which is kind of weird, 'cause everybody knows what's in it at that point.

But he's in front of me and I told him like, hey, it's, you know, pretty popular thing.

1:41

She's like, yeah, I guess they get tons of them everyday, so.

So did you walk?

It was like 2 guys on a motorcycle.

Did you walk by each other with your boxes and like, throw the little sign again?

The the, the little low wave.

Hey, bro, you pooped in a box.

1:57

I pooped in a box.

We got so much in common.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that.

Yep.

I love it.

Have you seen that Cola guard?

SNL skill, yeah.

Yeah, go on.

That's funny.

Yeah, that's funny.

2:14

Dude, I saw what was the latest SNL I saw that was actually really good.

Yeah, no idea.

I honestly, I quit watching SNL years ago when they started getting, I don't know, just too political for me.

Yeah, it is annoying, isn't it?

Yeah, well, I just, you know, I I mean, I like humor and I'm not one that says, oh, if any politics involves can't be funny, No, it's just it just wasn't funny.

2:37

Yeah, Josh Brolin, Josh Brolin, did you see that one?

March 9th?

So yeah, it was like 2 weeks ago.

That was a good one.

So if you go back, if you have whatever, what do we have?

YouTube TV.

So you know, you can just go back and find it.

2:53

But the Josh Brolin episode, he's actually really funny and he's such a good actor too.

I don't know if you ever watched any of the Sicario movies, but he's just a good actor.

He was great in Sicario.

He was great in No Country For Old Men.

Yeah, yeah, good actor, but funny.

3:10

Funny dude.

So that's a great episode.

Sometimes you see an episode where you're like, damn, the show's funny, and then you'll see four or five.

That sucked, you know, But it was a good one.

Anyways, let's move on from that.

What else is New John?

Nothing new, man.

All same, All same, same, same what?

The hell are you doing over there?

3:30

Did you zone out?

No, I'm not zoning out actually, and I should just shut it down.

So I'm watching porn.

And.

Oh God.

3:47

Oh, we're still doing the podcast.

So.

So, Adele, I got Sam Wilkins.

Literally.

I'm talking to him right now, related to one of the subjects I want to talk to today.

Yeah, I can hear you typing over there.

4:09

Yeah, there you go.

I'll stop right there.

All right, close it out.

So.

It'd be like me having a conversation with somebody where we're doing the podcast.

Yeah, I know, I know.

But I had to.

He's just I'm, I'm literally trying to tell him like anyway what they need to get sorted out which is once again it's something that I don't think enough shops regardless of where you're at.

4:34

It's one more of the, at least for me, a tech support item that a lot of people don't take into consideration and that is humidity.

So, and anyway, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about today.

Well, I'd say lack of humidity.

4:53

The absence, the absence of humidity is the problem.

Not a humid shop isn't problematic.

The lack of humidity can create some issues, which, well, let's just, let's just jump right into it.

That's a good segue right into what you want to talk about.

5:09

So hit it, John.

Well, there's a lot of things that doing tech support a lot of people get like what amount of plasticizer what water are you putting in you know what are you using as your mixer, what size mixing vessel you know are you using a drum mixer versus.

5:25

So there's all these things that all of us talk about and temperature of course you know how much ice are you putting in your water, what's the temperature, your mix etcetera And of of massively, I don't know, I'm going to say overlooked and not thought about is what's the humidity in your shop now higher humidities and this is just nature of the beast.

5:49

So I'm going to just this is my little story where I'm at pretty year round is I'm going to say on the low end maybe 353035 and then in the high end, you know, I don't know, maybe we'll get into 60s, right?

6:04

But we're pretty much in that zone year round.

When I would come out to your place in Arkansas or end up in Georgia, the thing that always which I thought was super cool is #1, the mixes would wet out quicker.

6:21

I could use less plasticizer.

I mean it was constant no matter what and I knew what that was.

I mean you guys just had higher humidities in the air and it was obvious based on the mixing.

So when I'm talking to guys in, I hate to say arid climates, but specifically winter is and I'd say some of the guys in Canada, we were going through the same thing.

6:47

Specifically Simon Tipple.

He hit me quite often like hey my sans I need to switch out my sans.

I'm not quite getting the flow that I would like to see and same with Sam Wilkins sometimes and and then to come to find out that they were in subteen humidities like 8 or 12 or you know, hey John, we're, you know we're 13 today in the humidity and I'm like, Oh my God, no, see there's the issue.

7:15

So just so people know optimum humidities which certainly can be higher optimum of a low humidity I would say you know 35, you drop below 35 and you need to get something in your shop environment whether that be a humidifier or misters boiling water.

7:35

I mean, I don't know, but you need to do something to increase the humid in your shop.

And there was shoot, I can't think of his name now up in Reno.

The same.

Oh Jimmy.

Jimmy Hazel.

Yeah, yeah, the same.

7:52

And we went up there and what we started having him do is just basically in the morning just, you know, spray the floor down of your shop and you know, keep some, keep some humidity in the air because in the winter.

Some fans on get the air moving.

That moisture is going to evaporate.

8:08

That's necessary.

And a lot of people I, I don't know, you know, again, I certainly, you know, not into all that kind of stuff, you know, weather forecasting and understanding all that.

But the reality is into winter months, it's usually lower humidity than the summer months.

8:25

And to me, just my simple way of thinking that is you know when there's sun, when there's sun out and you know, vaporizing the water into air droplets into the air, you're definitely going to have a higher humidity.

It's the nature of the beast and when it's cold and the air freezes, well you know again you're you're dropping all that moisture out of the air hence the humidity is going to be lower.

8:49

So which is I said from a mental point of view it's it's sometimes hard for guys to think of it about it that way.

So during the colder months that would be the time to increase the humidity in your shop.

But more importantly, I just, if I can get this out to it, start paying attention to that in your shop.

9:06

You know most of us, I'm going to say aren't going to be concerned with it or most of us are probably in areas where humidity is year round or you know let's say within normal ranges for casting concrete.

But if you're in an area, and again I'm thinking anything that, you know, Utah can happen up in the, you know, the Montanas, you know, any of those northern kind of thing, colder temperatures where you may be in situations where you're below 35 humidities, you need to bring something in to increase the humidity in your shop or you're going to find yourself again, what I call chasing the mix, you're going to think you need more plasticizer, you're going to think you need more water.

9:48

It's not flowing right.

How come the mix isn't consolidating?

Why isn't it releasing air like it normally does?

And and that's that's a culprit right there.

So there's only one There's only one Montana, by the way.

Well, I was thinking Dakotas, yeah, Yeah.

10:05

I know.

I just want to clarify that because we're gonna have some listeners from out of the country.

They're gonna be confused by the Montanas.

South.

Montana and in Montana.

New Montana.

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

New Montana.

Old Montana, Yeah.

10:22

So yeah, that was a big one.

I just, I wanted to put out there for everybody.

There again, they don't cost anything.

Get the, you know, get something to monitor the humidity in your shop and pay attention to that.

And in the winter months would be the time I think people would find themselves struggling with their mixes.

10:41

And it's not because of mixed temperature, it's not because of the plasticizer.

This goes back to something we've already talked about in Concrete Design School.

When when we do put on the trainings is a lot of people you know well how do you get your mixes consistent throughout the year.

10:59

And we've always talked about temperature, right?

Is to monitor your temperature.

But the other side of that is, you know, if you don't want to be chasing water and plasticizer, you know, mixed temperature, that's a pretty easy one with ice now.

But yeah, you got to monitor your humidities.

11:15

Watch your humidities.

I just checked while you're talking.

So Wichita, right now today's 35°, it's pretty cold.

In two days it's going to be 75°, but today it's 35 and we're at 51% humidity.

And I checked Eureka Springs, it's a little bit colder, it's 31° there today.

11:31

It's below freezing, but there's 62% humidity today in Eureka Springs.

So that's what I'm used to.

Winter months, 5060% and then summer months 80 plus percent humidity.

You know, I was in Arizona, I was in Phoenix for like 1516 years.

11:48

My shop was there in in Phoenix.

It's a very dry climate, obviously for a good part of the year.

Late summer we have monsoon season, which is like these big storms come in, It's amazing and the humidity goes up and it's like 110°F with like 80% humidity.

12:04

So it's miserable, right?

But that's late summer, but most of the summer it's hot and dry.

But all the shops there, all the warehouse spaces, have swamp coolers or evaporative coolers, and that's just a big fan.

It's on the roof and there's these filters and it pumps water through the filters just like a little pond pump that's just pumping water through the filters.

12:25

The filters stay wet and air is sucked through them and it just puts moisture in the air and as the moisture evaporates in the hot, you know, hot dry climate, it cools the air.

But by proxy you're introducing a lot of humidity into the space.

So you know, in Phoenix all the metal shops can't, can't have evaporative coolers cause all the metal rust.

12:46

So if you're a welder you have to put in forced HVAC.

But most warehouse spaces have swamp coolers.

So for me in in Phoenix, I've never had trouble because I had this introduced humidity.

But I like the idea, you know, yeah, you could hose down your shop floor in the morning, get some some low fans, like some floor fans, and just kick them on so it's blowing across it.

13:06

And then, you know, couple hours, you're probably going to be at least 2030% higher humidity in your shop space.

Yeah, they're so simple solutions.

Yeah.

I mean, otherwise, like I said, they're, they do make and they're pretty inexpensive.

And I only know this now, 'cause I was looking it up for these guys.

They make these, they're considered whole house or whole shop humidifiers.

13:26

But for a 5000 or one that supposedly supports 5000 square feet, it was only $200.

It really, I mean, to me, that's not bad.

Yeah, I mean, in these really cold climates, they're going to have heat in the shop.

You know Dusty in his shop in Tennessee, he had a wood burning stove for a while, a really cool one in his shop.

13:46

But the problem with wood burning stove is it dries the air really fast.

I mean, it sucks all the moisture out of the air, but a normal forest HVAC dries the air, you know, with the furnace.

So you're still going to be trying to overcome, in addition to the low moisture in the air in those climates, you're going to be overcoming the increased dehumidification due to the forest HVAC.

14:10

So you might even want to look into my house.

Here in Wichita we have a whole house humidifier that you turn on in the winter time.

And it's kind of like the swamp cooler where essentially it it goes through a a filter, water's pumped through and the there's like a bypass on the vent system and it goes through there and introduces moisture the same way that a swamp cooler does introduces moisture in the air.

14:32

So as it's going through the entire house, all the all the air registers and all the rooms, it's humid air instead of dry air and I think they're pretty inexpensive.

I can't think the name of it something air.

AIREI remember seeing that part of the name, but.

14:49

I think that's what I recommended them, like literally.

And it it was pretty inexpensive.

Yeah, yeah.

It's something that you could put if you have a forced HVAC, you can put it on your shop and that would be introducing moisture into the and then you have warm humid air, which is the best in your shop.

So yeah, there's ways to get around it, but it's definitely something you have to be aware of.

15:07

Well, that's what I'm hoping these guys make those changes because that in of itself I think they're going to find will make solve a lot of their when I say issues just it sounds like they just they keep especially in the winter months chasing chasing the mix and there's no reason, you know if we don't have to, there's no reason to chase the mix.

15:31

I mean, once you get where you're at and you find your plasticizer and your water amount and you're mixing, you know it within reason of mixed temperature, you should be able to accommodate that year round.

Yeah, I actually find right now I'm going lower and lower in plasticizer which is expected.

15:51

It's winter months, it's colder.

You know, my shop is heated.

I keep it at 62, you know, probably the concrete itself, the, you know, maker mix bags are probably in the 50s and the water's going to be fairly cold as well.

But I'm using right around 65 to 67 grams of TBP per bag of maker mix for optimal mix in the summer months.

16:14

Might be 7072, but right now I'm 6567, so.

But that should be the increments you're chasing too, is, you know, 67 to 70.

Well, it's only three grand, yeah.

Little.

Yeah, small adjustments, exactly.

Not not big ones.

And it should be a gradual thing.

It's not just one day.

It's, you know, far too much.

16:29

You'll just notice, like, oh, man, this thing's wetting out really fast.

I'll back it down on the next one.

So, yeah.

Yep, So.

There's that one, man.

Humidity.

Everybody get a, you know, get a very inexpensive run to pick up something, put it in your shop and monitor your humidity.

16:47

Or even better, we've been talking about them anyway.

Just go ahead and pick up some of those sensor push and, you know, use it for curing your concrete and monitoring your shop's temperatures and humidities.

Real simple and inexpensive, yeah, And tied right to your phone.

17:06

So as long as you have Wi-Fi or their sensor push sensor, I think they call it, boom, you got access to that information.

I'm looking.

Right now dude, you can hop on Amazon and put in.

I just put in house humidity sensor and here's one.

17:22

It's a room thermometer, Indoor hygrometer, humidity gauge, humidity meter $9.99.

Here's another one.

Digital hygrometer, indoor thermometer and humidity meter $6.99, so between 7 and 10 bucks.

17:37

You can pick one up on Amazon, put it in your shop and then you'll know what that shop space is.

Not outside 'cause I'm working on my phone, that's the Wichita area.

But inside your shop could be different conditions, especially if you have forced HVAC.

So so yeah, six, six to 10 bucks.

17:53

You can pick one up, no?

Again, just something one more thing you know to pay attention to that I think a lot of people are not paying attention to mainly and not because they're just not thinking about it.

That's all they have.

Things that are happening, they don't understand why they're happening.

18:08

But once you get an understanding of what it is, then you can adjust for it.

You can keep an eye on it, You can monitor and make adjustments.

Good.

OK.

So next thing John, what I'm doing is you know we jumped right into that conversation, but Martin Duckett posted on the the Kodiak Pro discussion page kind of a call for Q&A call for questions to discuss and Simon Temple responded back that was one of his questions about low humidity in casting.

18:34

Another question he had was pigment loading and saturation points and again it's going to be mixed specific.

So what we found with maker mix and rad mix is due to the increased density of these mixes we're able to use a lower plasticizer or lower plasticizer, a lower pigment loading to get richer colors and but if you're using a traditional GFRC mix, you know 5050 sand and cement with a polymer it's going to be it's going to be more pigment required to get a a more rich dense color but pigment loading and saturation points.

19:10

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I I.

Mean, I can throw out some general rules, the general rules that we saw again all the way back to the blue concrete days, it was 10% was a saturation point.

I mean, I think 10%.

Was like the Max before you just completely murder the mix.

19:27

Well, and and really the Max based on at least what we saw bang for buck, yeah, because once you hit a 10%, now here is the caveats of that.

We're saying 10%, but this is back in the days where everything was, you know, based on a percent loading, based on cement, right.

19:47

And we all agree now that's that's a no, no, don't look at it that way, Just base it on 50% of your dry materials.

So I'm just, I'm going by old knowledge, old general rules, old general rules were 10% based on cement.

20:03

Anything beyond that?

Number one, no bang for buck love.

You could add 20% and it didn't do anything really.

And then not only did it do anything, what you started seeing was problems with the mix and once you got 10% or higher.

20:21

So that is old knowledge.

I would say today's new knowledge is which we've talked around before is base your percent weight loading on 50% of your dry materials.

And again this is mixes based on most of your conventional cast concrete today in people shops that are fairly rich in cement.

20:42

I would say another one if guys are using sacred kind of stuff, but if you're using your standard kind of 5050 ish mix designs, you know or anything that's richer in cement with higher fines like fine particle mixes, UHPCS, any of that kind of jazz, 50% of your dry weight is what you've is base your calculation on.

21:04

And then on that, I would say 5% loading is where I think where you lose or anything we've tested you just.

Lose your bank.

You're done.

Hello.

Oh, did I lose you?

No, you.

Didn't lose me.

I'm Hold on, Aaron.

I'm talking to John, but you can't hear him because on my headphones, Aaron called.

21:22

What do you need, Aaron?

Oh, oh.

I was just wondering if you talked to that Grass Creek guy yet?

No, but I'm doing a podcast.

Oh, OK Bye.

I didn't know.

It's OK.

Adios.

Good.

All right.

So yeah.

So at that point, when we're talking about these kind of mixes, the bang for buck that I see is at 5%, 5% loading.

21:46

Can guys go higher than that?

Well, you can, but you know what you're going to see as a benefit really starts slowing down dramatically, Yeah.

And I would my own experience is from 3% to 5% is negligible.

22:04

So I have all these colour samples in the back of my shop where as testing maker mix with our pigments and I would do quarter percent, half percent 1%, two percent 3%, four percent 5% and I did a few that went like 6 or 75 is definitely the saturation point for maker mix.

22:24

Anything beyond 5%, you don't see anything.

But really between 3:00 and 5:00, if you put them a couple feet away from you and you just look at them, they're pretty darn close.

I mean it is really close.

It'd be hard to to pick which one is which.

You know, if you put them right next to each other and you're looking them up close, yeah, the 5%'s going to be darker than a three.

22:43

But it's it's amazing how quickly maker mix gets really dense in color.

That's my experience.

I get a lot of people asking me.

We got a few questions this week of people asking for loadings using the Kodiak Pro pigments to get a natural Gray color.

22:59

And the stone pigment is more of a natural Gray Portland Gray than the slate.

The slate leans more towards green, the stone leans more towards a brown.

So for me, Portland, it all depends on where you're based too.

I mean, for years and years I was in Phoenix and I used Quikrete Portland and it had a very brownish undertone to it.

23:21

I've been other places where the Portland's been purple or been like really green.

It's just region specific.

So it might be different for you, but for me it was leaning more towards brown.

And so 1/4 percent to half percent depends on, you know, how dark you want it.

But a quarter percent to half percent of stone in maker mix is a very, very, very spot on Natural Gray Portland Look and think about how little pigment that is 1/4 percent.

23:49

It's.

Insane.

It's like a a pinch of pigment and boom, done.

Agreed.

Man, yeah.

So and and I just want to add a few things cause see this is where people sometimes I feel like we're always have to defend you know, before like well what about now come you didn't say.

24:05

So part of these answers coming back the 5%, I just want to emphasize that that percent loading is also based on pigments that have a fairly broad profile in their pigment sizes.

24:25

So as we know carbon black at 5% now, I mean saturation point for carbon black would be more like maybe 1 or 2%, but anything above that is going to wreck your mix.

I mean you know what I mean?

It just turns it to like this tarry consistency and because carbon Black's a super pigment, it's also going to pump air.

24:48

So be aware of that and.

Really.

Nest your water so you'll end up with.

Oh yeah, and then it's.

Yeah, it really sucks up water like nobody's business.

So anyway, I just want to put some of that stuff in there because I that's another one that I do get.

I can't remember his name.

25:04

I know he's in I think South Carolina but he was trying to run something like 6% or maybe it was a something 4% carbon black and he was just really struggling with it with the idea that it was you know trying to get a black mix.

But the other thing with carbon black is once you reach A and focused on this one now once you reach that saturation point then some of your pigments no longer bonding.

25:29

So it actually, you know, washes out of of any of the mixes regardless nature of the beast.

So.

Super red, super green, super Blues, all those super pigments, yeah.

Yeah, I hate.

Those pigments.

I hate them.

You remember way back in the day, Way back in the day.

25:47

This is Murray Clark.

This is before Sean Hayes bought blue concrete.

So this is Murray on his own, in his shed, in his backyard, out in the factory.

His wife oh, Murray's unavailable.

He's in the factory right now.

Oh, he's in the shed.

Outback.

OK, tool shed.

26:04

Yeah, it's.

Not even a a barn.

It was a shed.

That's awesome.

Man, but.

Back then, you know Murray's whole claim to fame was he would color match any Benjamin Moore paint color, and there's thousands of Benjamin Moore paint colors.

There's three decks or five decks of colors, and he would color match any of them.

26:21

But the color match is he would give you the formulation, which was good and bad, and he was in a business selling pigment.

So he'd give you a color formulation.

It would be like 6 pigments and it'd be like .001% super green, 3% Curry, 1.4% carbon black.

26:40

And it was just these insane formulas of like 7 colors and then they had like a 5 LB or 10 LB minimum per color.

And I ended up there was a time in my shop where I just had a whole shelf just of all these different containers of random pigments because I had to buy all these different colors and blend them together.

26:58

And it's very, you know, specific crazy formulations to get Buttercup yellow or whatever it was, you know?

No, we all went through that, man.

Yeah, I don't miss.

Those days.

And then Blue bought it.

And you know, they continued that on for a while and they were giving out formulations for a while, but then they kind of realized that the formulations were kind of where the value was and then they just started making the pigment, but they wouldn't give you the formulation, you know, So it was, but it was, it was a pain in the butt, big pain in the butt.

27:25

Agreed.

Yeah, 100% agree.

So anyways, that's that's that, you know some pigments.

It's weird.

I was thinking about this other day.

I've done some colors.

It'll be like a a grayish, like a a grayish, you know, like the beige Gray color and the pigment has red in it or or you know something that and the back, if you get any any type of segregation like if you over plasticize a little bit the back is all pink.

27:52

So you'll cast this Gray concrete, this kind of beige Gray.

I've done this color a few times and this happened and I've over plasticized.

I just went a little too much.

And you get a little bit of that, you know, kind of like foam, slight layer and it's always pink and you're like, oh, this isn't good, You know, you it's like Pepto bismol pink, the whole back of your piece, but then when you flip it, it's Gray.

28:13

Have you ever had that happen, Sean?

No, but I don't use a whole lot of Reds.

I don't.

I mean, well, it's got to be.

In there, you know, I'm using Gray, but there has to be a red in there because it's it's segregating out of it.

Yeah, I think that's.

The what that we called the old O65, which was like a purple red.

28:31

Yeah, yeah, I.

Had to happen to be probably two or three times over the last, you know, 2020 years now of yeah, I don't know.

Mostly, I mean, I must say 99.9% of everything I do now is Shades of Grey.

28:48

That's all anybody asks for.

Shades of Grey.

I bet.

That's right, buddy.

Are you still?

Watching.

Watching movies over there on your laptop, over working.

No, not at all.

OK, You're.

Talking about Shades of Grey, actually, I was.

Just went to that Facebook page to see what kind of other questions were being asked, because I did have another subject I just wanted to hit on for a second.

29:13

What would that?

Be John.

Well, with the the, let's say, the updated version of the single component sealers, I've been getting questions related to applications and application techniques.

And I think last time last week, so we talked about sealing versus coating, which led to again more questions this week of well, how do I increase my ability to seal versus coat.

29:43

So the one thing I want to put out there for everybody is this, if this makes sense.

So it's specifically even more so with the single component what you want to focus on or or.

Again the the general idea with ICT is to, if this makes sense, soak in, impregnate and react with the concrete right back with the concrete's your Part B, the sealer's your part A.

30:11

So what you don't want to do is immediately move to full strength sealer with the idea that you're sealing.

Because it's the diluted applications that increase, let's say overall dwell time.

30:27

And I hate to use the word sloppy, but so the first applications you really want to leave them robust, Leave them sloppy.

Not so as much that they're, you know, puddling or dripping down edges or anything, but what you don't want to do is apply it in a manner that dries quickly.

30:45

The first applications you really want a really nice open dwell time which allows you know all the colloidals, the silicates, the you know, submicron particles to soak in as deep as they can into the concrete.

31:03

If you don't, you're just sacrificing performance.

So the faster you move to your full strength, which because of the, you know, percent solids, which still isn't very much for ICT, you run the risk of kind of creating a shell.

31:21

And if that shell becomes impervious, then you're not really soaking into the concrete to get the long term durability or the quote UN quote ceiling performance that you're looking for.

So that's one thing I just wanted to focus on those people who have been doing that, focusing more on like 3 parts of water, one part protect or you know, two-part water.

31:43

And specifically I'm thinking about Phil Courtney who's his method to madness is to really focus on the two-part water, one part protect.

He doesn't have a number like he basically does applications of that until the concrete acts like it wants no more.

32:05

Most of the time he's going to tell you.

That's usually two applications.

But he doesn't stop at two.

He may do a third.

He might do a fourth.

Hell, he might only do one.

It's all dependent on how the concrete reacts to that.

And then he minimizes the amount of applications of either one to one or even full strength.

32:25

And that's just something I want to get out there to.

Everybody is.

You know, this is not a, hey, can I put on four applications of full strength?

I would say no.

Go back and do if you needed to.

Four applications of two to one or even 1 to one under.

32:41

The general idea is we're trying to soak it into the concrete and full strength isn't going to do that.

And then what else?

Another tech support.

One Vinegar.

Go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Oh, vinegar.

So the vinegar wipes.

You don't start with vinegar wipes.

32:58

So the and the other thing is you don't want to like, soak the concrete vinegar.

The vinegar wipe is a wipe.

You literally take a rag, you dip it into a container or vinegar.

I pour vinegar in a little cork container, dip it in, squeeze it out with my hand.

You know, I just squeeze it really hard.

33:13

So it's just damp and then I wipe the surface and it's like Windex.

It dries within 1520 seconds.

I wipe the surface.

You let it dry.

If you're like saturating the just move it around.

You're doing it wrong.

You don't want it.

That's not the purpose of the vinegar wipe, right?

33:30

You put it, so yeah, caveats to that.

Two things.

Acetic acid.

I hate to use the word violently but the reality is there's some pretty significant reactions to happen to acetic acid and maybe early on and typical of me, I you know, I'll tell you can, but you know do it this way or that way or whatever and I backed off a lot of that, especially being around you and like no, just do it this way.

33:58

So a a couple things.

When you acid wash as part of your processing, and I I definitely said this myself, I always finish with a vinegar scrub at the very end and rinse OK so you know after you're done.

34:15

After, let me explain.

So after I'm done with my muriatic acid wash and then I Scotch brite and scrub all that off like a nine inch rinse.

Then I'll hit vinegar, scrub the surface and then rinse that off thoroughly as well.

Then I set that aside to seal, and the reason for that is to get a slight amount of acetic acid impregnated into the surface of the concrete, but deep into the concrete, not superficially.

34:42

A couple mistakes that I've seen people make which turns into mistake is they take the raw concrete to begin with right before sealing, and then wipe the surface with the vinegar.

And then I'll hear something.

Well, John, didn't you?

You said we could do that.

Well, you can, but now I'm going to say no, I've taken that out completely because people don't understand or they don't open up the view of the rest of the possibilities, John, And the downside of that possibility put my head through.

35:12

A window right now I know, right?

If it's not done correctly, then that let's say that young acetic acid that just got wiped on there creates a violent reaction with the first application, a sealer creating a shell that essentially prevents to a degree further applications of ICT soaking in and actually sealing the concrete.

35:38

So moving forward, I'm just going to tell everyone don't do that anymore.

Just don't do it.

Don't even bring vinegar wipes until well into your, you know, 2nd, 3rd or 4th diluted applications.

35:54

Don't bring it in young, you know, wait until you got some sealer on board, you know, before starting that at all.

And that's the safe zone.

If someone if you want to push it right, you want to be like Dalton and you know go be part of Roadhouse and really push it, then fine.

36:13

But to do that, you need to understand what you're doing to have the confidence not to cause problems.

I don't.

Do that, and I don't recommend anybody does that.

I like having very simple instructions and not deviating for years.

36:31

When you first taught me how to use ICT back in whenever that was 2010, 2011 when you first showed me for I don't know how many years, 10 years after that, I did not deviate one bit from that.

And all these other people are having different variations of how they sealed.

You know, they would do this and do that.

36:47

And I remember Ron Mills came to a class and I was showing ICT and he was shaking his head no the whole time.

He's like that's that's not how you do it.

I'm like that's how I do it.

You do it how you want.

I'm gonna, I'm doing it the way John showed me.

I didn't deviate at all and I had really good success.

I think people get in trouble when they get off and they they try these, you know, alternate methods and that can introduce issues.

37:08

Now if you're a more advanced user, you're very used to ICT, you know what you're supposed to be looking for somebody like a Phil, Courtney, Dusty Baker, they can, they can, you know, do what they want to do and they'll get to where they want to go.

But for somebody that's newer to the industry or somebody that's doesn't have a whole lot of history with it, don't deviate.

37:27

I don't deviate.

I don't deviate when you tell to me this is how to do it.

I write those instructions down and I stick to it, to ATI, do not deviate.

And I have great results and I have consistent results and I don't have any problems.

So you know, that's what I do now.

37:43

Phil Courtney was doing more diluted apps and I asked you about that 'cause I saw him post about it and I said, you know, he's doing multiple two to ones before he goes to 1:00 to 1:00.

What are your thoughts?

You're like, yeah, man, it's not going to hurt anything.

And so I started doing that based on your recommendation of yeah, you know, just it's not going or anything.

And I liked it.

37:58

I like it.

I think it you minimize any issues for streaking or anything like that because it's just, you know, it's it's a more subtle approach to it.

And I got my feet up on the coffee table right now in my shop.

But this coffee table's gotten quite a bit of use over the last couple of months or I don't know, six weeks.

38:16

It looks perfect, looks brand new.

And every day I put food on it, I put coffee cups on it, I put water bottles on it and it just sits there.

And right now it looks like the day I I put it up here, you know, so well.

It all goes down to the general philosophy of how this kind of technology works.

38:33

No it.

Doesn't.

It does not come down to that.

It comes down to.

Here are the clear, concise instructions.

Do that.

ICT is such a great sealer.

The, the biggest hindrance to people having success to ICT is they do not follow the instructions as they're written.

38:52

They deviate off the instructions.

Whether that's because they have habits from previous sealer technologies they used that they're applying to this sealer, or because they get on Facebook or some other social media and they read how somebody else is doing it and you know they're like, well, he's doing it, I'm going to do that.

39:09

But just because SO and so's doing it doesn't mean you're going to have the same results.

The instructions on the website on Kodiak Pro, that's stick to that.

That's a proven method.

It's a simple method.

Just do that and you'll have very consistent.

That reminds me of.

That one, when we saw those videos, a guy who was heating up the concrete so much that once he flooded the and he did, he just flooded the material on there, it was literally vaporized.

39:34

I mean, you could just see the vapor flying off and that was me.

For years, you know that's.

But this is, this is human nature.

Human nature is if this is good, more is better.

If this is good, let me push a little bit further.

Let me, let me just go a little further.

39:51

So if you're trying to get the concrete to 95°, so if 95 was good, 105 would probably be better.

Oh 105's we're going to be able to do to 110.

You know when I was in Phoenix, I'd push pieces out in the sun like a black piece of concrete in the middle of summer in the sun, 100 and 3000 and 40° outside.

When you pulled into the hour, that thing was cooking and you put sealer on it, and I mean I can even touch it with a bare hand, it was so hot.

40:10

And it would just gone instantaneously.

Right.

But I was one of those people because I just for what it's like well, I don't know what it is about humans.

We just cannot follow directions as are written.

We think if this is good let me let me push it a little bit further you know but that you don't want to do that.

40:28

Just stick to the directions, stick to the.

Plan, man, Yeah.

Consistency, Consistency.

Consistency wins every time.

I agree, Yeah.

It's great to see the comments from people who now have the single component in their hands and seeing the differences.

40:46

It's pretty cool I.

Agree.

So next thing, what would I source for Sands for a silica free mix?

Well, to me there's really only.

Well, I shouldn't say only two, but for me it would only be one based on what your expectation is.

41:09

Again for performance.

And that to me would be glass.

Glass sands.

They, you know, within reason, have a decent MO's hardness, within reason they're going to get some pretty decent PS is and within reason.

41:25

Unless you get the colored stuff, you're going to get a a consistency in colour.

That's going to be nice.

The other choices are going to be like carbonates and I think that's oh not I think let's say I'm familiar with some of the mixes like in Australia that moved to carbonates and you know calcium carbonate sands could be a choice.

41:48

But just realize they're it's going to be very they're going to be soft.

So you're not going to have very strong concrete and it's going to be I'm going to say a bit of a pain in the butt to work with because they're very powdery.

The the next choice would be again like your lightweight materials, right, like things again like the the poor avers and things which are an expanded glass.

42:13

So again these are going to be amorphous choices.

The downside there again is you're going to, you're going to have some kind of loss and compression strengths and and things like that.

But if you're not opposed to those kind of losses, those are the kind of choices I would look for.

42:29

Glass would be my number one.

And who is it?

Joe Keating's.

He's got, he's got some really nice glass sands.

It's and then I think it's recycled from windshields or something and he's got it already broken into a 30 mesh and stuff.

42:46

So that would be one of my choices.

I don't know.

Someone told me Heritage Glass may not be around anymore.

Remember Heritage Glass?

I always.

Said.

They're like little kits with all the little colored, yeah.

I just get a good source for for glass contents.

Yeah, so glass would be my #1.

43:03

After that would be things like carbonate sands, calcium carbonate sands.

But just be aware of, you know, the pros and cons there.

They're going to be very soft and and messy, powdery and change your water demand and so forth.

And next would be the coded versions of that would be things like your poor avers and and these kind of materials.

43:25

But again, you're going to sacrifice some amounts of strengths, whatever that is.

And if you're happy doing it, then there you go.

Are there any naturally occurring sands?

You know the carbonates one, but like river sand, wash river sand, Does that contain too much silicon to be silica free well?

43:46

See, this is again.

This is where we get into that whole conversation.

What do we mean by silica free?

Crystal and silica free?

If the answers no crystals or an amorphous then yeah, even your your washed river sands.

Yeah, that.

No, there's there's still crystal and silica, but.

44:02

Glass doesn't have crystal and silica polymorphous.

Yeah.

And and when we get into this conversation now it's it's no longer about the silicosis because that takes an extremely I think down to what one and two Micron or smaller dust particles in the air.

44:22

And so I get you know your bag sands not going to have that.

So silicosis from using the concrete, mixing the concrete, you know none of that's an issue.

It's the cutting of the concrete and turning that sand or potentially turning the sand into that very fine particle that becomes the potential for silicosis issue.

44:44

And in that case, then your wash sands would be an issue.

So I was thinking about like carbide, sand, silicon carbide, but would that also create issues?

Yeah, still has crystalline silica.

Yep.

Well, I knew it did because I googled it.

I just want to see.

I just want.

44:59

I just wanted to see if you got the answer right.

I just want to see because I already googled it to see.

I think.

No, you don't.

No, John, you can't.

I just looked it up.

But yeah, you're right, it does.

Yeah, I.

Mean.

Really, your only choice is.

It would be amorphous and your you know your number because even that your your calcium carbonates although is really low.

45:21

I think again less than 1% kind of thing.

You can't say zero and but your glass would be 0 that that is amorphous.

So to me the number one choice would be glass as your full sand replacements.

45:36

That makes sense.

Makes sense.

John Schuler.

And you'd be using that with Rad Mix, obviously, because Maker Mix already has Sands in it, so correct.

Yeah, Gotcha.

OK.

And again they are clean washed sands.

45:53

So you know the whole like you know small particle powder is is not a concern with the maker mix.

But at the end of the day, meaning again, so from A and and and again, I'm just going by all the things that I've heard or read.

46:09

Some of the misunderstandings is so Someone Like You bust a bag open and you're putting it in your mixer and you see the, the powder, right, or the pull the yes.

I mean I'm not telling anybody to breathe that.

But no, that's not the silico.

46:26

That's not the concern.

Silicosis is a concern there.

I'm still saying, you know, turn on your air vents, turn on your clean, you know, do all that kind of wear a mask, do all that kind of stuff.

But that's not the concern.

You're not getting into that fine Micron until you're actually taking diamond equipment and cutting through it and taking that sand and cutting it into that fine Micron powder.

46:52

That's the issue.

Yeah, makes.

Sense.

Well, let's get really quick on to our upcoming Workshops Concrete Heroes Quest, May 1st through 3rd Napa, CA Advanced Form Building Ramcrete.

Speaking of Ramcrete, now that weeks gone by that sink was made by Sirho Rojas and I'll maybe I'll post it a photo of it on on the show notes if you go to concert.

47:15

Beautiful.

Yeah, he did a great job.

It's really pretty.

Yeah, if you go to Kodiak.

Pro.com Scroll down to the podcast.

Click on this episode.

There'll be a photo of that Ram Crete sink that Sirho Rojas make made.

And it is beautiful.

47:32

Also, Martin Duckett just posted a photo today of a Ramcrete panel he made, and several other people this week have been sending us photos of Ramcrete pieces that are just astounding.

So.

But we're going to be covering Ramcrete in the concrete hero's quest, so if that is something you're interested in getting in on, it is the cutting edge.

47:51

It is super on trend.

If you want to learn that process, come to the Hero's Quest, May 1st through 3rd Napa, CA.

Next class is the fabric forming concrete sink and GFRC Workshop June 21st through 23rd.

Here in Goddard, KS we go over how to fabric form and how to pour a GFRC sink.

48:09

It's a lot of fun.

The next class is going to be the furniture design Workshop August 16th through 18th here in Goddard and that is design and build your own piece of furniture.

So we go through the criteria of designing a piece, everything that's needs to be taken into account and we're actually going to make a piece of furniture so and you can take that home with you.

48:27

And the last workshop is the basics class, it's our fundamental concrete workshop September 28th through 29th here in Goddard and that is our class to get a good first step into the industry.

If you're interested in concrete, you're not sure you don't want to go all the way in and you know invest in a ton of equipment and shop space and all that kind of stuff.

48:46

This is the class come to and you're going to learn the process, you're going to learn the basics and really get a feel for it.

And if it's something you want to do then that's that's the natural progression of where to get started.

So that is the basics class any anything to put on that John I do want.

49:01

To add, yeah, what I was going to say is what's really cool about the Ram Creed?

The next level in my opinion is, you know we've we've seen Rammed Earth which is beautiful, but all of those needed to be you know fairly robust, right?

49:20

Yeah, 6 inches, 8 inches, 24 inches minimum.

And now we're designing, you know these guys are designing around you know taking that to 1/2 inch thick or 5/8 half's a.

Little thin, but I think the thinnest I've heard anybody successful is about 3/4.

But even that's thin, yeah.

49:36

No.

Well, again, you're going to see that's what they're doing, man.

It's beautiful.

It's beautiful.

And that to me is where, you know, innovation takes this kind of stuff to new levels that has not been easily achieved before.

And that's pretty amazing.

49:52

It is amazing.

And it looks phenomenal.

And as we said, if you go see Dune and Dune 2, the new ones, you'll see rammed earth everywhere in the background.

But if you get on the Starbucks app, the background of the load screen is rammed earth.

You know it is across the board.

50:09

Designers are all on rammed earth.

The Hermes stores are all rammed earth.

You know all these all these very high end retailers, that's the material they're going towards.

And so if you're in this industry and you want to get in and be the person in your segment your your market doing that, then you're going to be the one that the designers call to make that reception desk or the cladding for behind you know counter at a office building or whatever it is sinks like a lot of these guys are doing.

50:41

There's so much potential for it.

So that's a good one.

And that class, that class we've had, you know last week I think we had six registrations.

This week's we've had two or three.

So that class is going to sell out 100%.

It's getting up there.

So I received multiple messages over the last month or so people, hey, I want to sign up.

50:59

I haven't done it yet.

Is it full And I've been like no, we still have room.

It's getting close.

So if you are interested, do not sit on your hands.

You will regret it.

This is the only Hero's quest we have scheduled for 2024 and it's May 1st through 3rd in Napa, CA.

Another thing I want to say John, is we did this class Wednesday, Thursday, check out Friday.

51:17

Right.

And the reason is hotels and rental cars in Napa are completely insane or even unavailable on the weekends.

Yeah, so I was looking, you know, the hotel we normally stay at was totally sold out already.

51:33

So I hopped on hotels.com.

And you know, there's still plenty of nice hotels that have availability and you and I both booked rooms.

But I was looking at a rental car, 'cause I thought, well, maybe I'll stay an extra day, you know, maybe I'll stay Friday and check out Saturday and fly back home on Saturday.

51:49

And the rental cars completely gone.

The only option was a cargo van.

So if I had my if, if I didn't return to rental car on Friday, if I returned it on a Saturday, the only option was a cargo van and it was going to be $3000 for the cargo van.

52:05

Yeah, that's how picked over Sacramento is, because everybody goes in Sacramento to to go to Napa.

That's how picked over Sacramento is on rental cars.

So my point is, if you're coming, definitely book your airfare, book your rental car, but be sure you depart on Friday with your rental car, because if you do Saturday, you're going to be screwed.

52:25

So yeah, definitely.

Jumps.

No question that even our rooms, they almost double or triple in price over the weekend, yeah.

Well, I stayed, you know, Unite stayed last time at the Cambria, which is a really nice hotel in Napa.

And it was like 170 a night when we booked.

52:42

We booked a couple months in advance.

It was like 170 a night.

And then one of my good friends came up and ended up, he's like, where you standing like Cambria, He's like, yeah, I booked a room, he booked a room.

It was like 500 a night for the same same time period, but he just waited until, you know, last second and it went from 170 to 500.

52:59

So anyways, that's yeah, you you want to get on your travel now, You don't want to wait till a week out to book travel because it just goes to the roof.

Yeah.

All right.

Anything else, John?

We got spring.

Break coming up though, right?

We do.

Have spring break.

We do have spring break.

And we're looking at, you know, taking a little family vacation.

53:17

So maybe we'll do a podcast next week, maybe we won't.

We'll just play it by ear.

Sounds good, buddy.

All right, man.

Adios.

 

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