Grateful Craft: Solving Your Concrete Conundrums

In this special Thanksgiving episode of The Concrete Podcast, we’re raising a glass (fiber) to you, our listeners, and tackling the questions that keep your projects moving forward. Wondering which AR Glass Fiber stands the test of time? Struggling to get your slurry color just right? Need a shower pan finish that keeps your footing steady? Or searching for top-tier concrete countertop mix Down Under? We've got answers.

Tune in for practical advice, a touch of gratitude, and a celebration of the craftsmanship that binds us all together. This episode isn’t just about solving problems—it’s about strengthening the foundation of your creativity.

#ConcreteDesign #Craftsmanship #MakerLife #ConcreteTips#SelfDevelopment #ProblemSolving #ThanksgivingPodcast #ConcreteArt#GrowthMindset

TRANSCRIPT:

Happy Thanksgiving, Jon Schuler.

Yeah, happy Thanksgiving, Brandon.

Only two days away from the big day.

By the time we get this edited in out, it'll be just in time for people on their planes, trains, and automobiles, traveling to wherever they're gonna go.

They say this is gonna be the biggest travel year in history.

No.

Yeah.

Really?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, they said it's up almost 2 million from last year, that this is gonna be the biggest travel day of the year and the biggest travel day, I think in history is what they're saying.

More people are traveling this year than ever before.

So, yeah.

I'm glad I'm not.

I'm not going anywhere.

Yeah, we are.

Yeah, I'm traveling.

Oof.

I don't need to hear.

It's the first time.

Well, there you go, see?

It's the first time in years that we have traveled at all for the holidays.

So there you go, man.

I didn't realize I was part of a trend.

You are.

You're very trendy.

Right?

That's me, buddy.

Nothing but trendy.

Well, driving, I'd be okay with.

I do feel trendy.

I am sitting right now in my Kodiak sweatshirt.

There you go.

Very trendy.

There you go.

I was going to say, I have no problem driving.

I'm just glad I'm not on a plane, stuck in an airport, because that's when it gets crazy.

And I have in years past.

I used to travel when I lived in Phoenix.

I traveled back to Arkansas to visit family.

And yeah, it was bananas.

Every year is bananas.

You get stuck in Dallas, Fort Worth, and there's millions of people, and the flights are delayed and canceled.

And yeah.

Yeah.

No, thank you.

Yeah.

No, we're driving.

Cool.

Let's get into this podcast, Jon.

I got a list here.

Number one, what was that really crap sealer?

Remember back in the day when Buddy Rhodes products thought they could take ICT and polyurethane and mix them together?

This is way back in the day.

They made a sealer.

What was that called?

I don't know.

I just remember it was RPS.

It's Randy Paul Sam.

I don't know if it's still called that or not.

I don't even know if it's on the same website.

What was it called?

It was called Reactive Poly Sealer.

I thought it was called Fusion for some reason.

No, that's the new crappy.

Somebody brought up, Remi brought up, you know, because he asked his Fusion just got polyurethane and added to it.

And it reminded me of that sealer that they tried to do that with.

You weren't a part of that.

You tried to talk him out of it.

But they tried to do that back in the day.

And I thought, did Jon just like have that lodge in the back of his brain, Fusion?

And they thought, that's a good name.

I'm going to put it on record again, again, Grizzly Shield.

Anytime you order this sealer from Jon, ask for Grizzly Shield.

And maybe at some point, maybe at some point we'll change the name to something better than Fusion, or XF22-1AB.

I didn't put any numbers in it this time.

Good.

Good.

No, no.

But speaking of Fusion, I saw a video that Gabriel posted, where he's testing it right now.

I still haven't tested it.

I'm going to try it out.

I need to.

I'm excited about it.

What was the deal with Fusion, Jon?

What is Fusion?

When I did this last class a week ago, everybody's asking, what is Fusion?

And I didn't really have a great explanation for them.

I just told them, you know, it's this...

Some people had been wanting to essentially apply topical on top of ICT.

They felt like that's what they want to do.

So Jon went to work to develop a topical-ish sealer that was compatible.

And then this all came about and it's worked really well.

So what is Fusion?

You want the short story or the long story?

I want the short story.

And that's still going to be a long story.

The short story basically is kind of what you just said.

That started down this path.

As I hear other people, the going just as they put something over the top of it, knowing full well what the regular ICT chemistry will do to the concrete over time, transitioned it to glass.

But in that period of time, there's really, I guess the only complaint was, you leave wet objects on there and can leave a dark circle.

And most of it, that doesn't bother us.

You know what I mean?

It is what it is.

So then we went down a path where, you know, I'm like, well, wait a minute, ceramic technologies, right?

SiO2s, yada, yada, yada.

And then that led me down a path of, well, wait a minute, you know, what if I just transform the whole thing into a catalyst-like combination along the path of the ceramics and utilize what most of us are using anyway in our tooling, which is heat and the torch.

Hence, came up with the whole idea of fusion.

Yeah, but I mean, why?

Why would somebody use it just to prevent the...

Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a question I was getting from people in the class is, ICT works great.

Why would I use fusion?

What's the benefit?

Yeah.

Well, the benefit, there's a couple of them.

Now, this is solely my opinion, solely my opinion and how I've been using it.

So, there's two specific incidents that I think the combination with fusion will not necessarily outperform, but the combination gives you an early increased performance than the regular protector satin alone.

So, again, let's just backtrack.

What does satin protect do?

That would be the first question.

Well, what it does is chemically alters the concrete into a glass-like straight.

Or glass-like substrate.

And that takes time.

It just is what it is.

Silicate technology are amazing, but they take time.

And at room temperature, those can take anywhere between weeks.

And boy, sometimes I've seen up to months.

And it just is what it is.

So, but they're amazing.

At the end of the day, I'm literally talking to you right now.

I'm at home, and I'm on a table that's 25 years old.

It's lived through, boy, anything you can imagine.

And you just can't hurt it because the chemistry has done what it's supposed to do.

But in the early phases, most of us, then that's the way it is.

You turn something around, you get it installed.

I think I talked about that a minute ago where the plumbers came in like 30 minutes after I got done sealing.

And we all fear that time zone, right?

We all know that the coding technology stays sticky.

We fight that in anyway, blah, blah, blah.

So, I understand all the benefits of the protectant satin, but I also understand the downfall, and the downfall is time.

So, the, then, fusion, the idea is to use a catalytic conversion, a heat-activated, heat-activated catalyzation that, essentially, turns it to a molten, creates a ceramic-like substrate, it penetrates into the concrete, creates the same microfilm, and now you have something that can take the abuse, I hate to say instantly, but easily within the first, you know, hours after application, and used in conjunction with protect, you get the balance of the ongoing long-term protection, and in that case, I kind of mentally think of it as a sacrificial, even though it won't be sacrificed.

It can't delaminate, I hate to use the word can't, some will figure something out, but it directly reacts, becomes part of the system.

And then the other, so there's a situation, in my opinion, using my own use, I literally just did this, guy wanted a vanity, I think I posted a picture, and you know, you did that cool thing with the bear in the background, and he needed it.

I had an incident at home, we talked about in the last podcast, my daughter got in a car accident that put me way behind in the shop, and he needed this thing for a big family event coming up, and man, I ended up putting it off for almost two weeks because I just couldn't get to it.

And I knew full well that when I turned this piece around, once I got it sealed, this was gonna go in full use within probably 12 hours.

I'm gonna show up, he's gonna slap it in place, boom, faucet's in, it's gonna get turned on and used.

And that's the way it is.

And I don't know ceiling technologies that can handle that.

So I wanted to create one that could.

And so there you go.

I do my first soaks with the Protect, knowing that's the long-term conversion.

And then I finish off with the Fusion, knowing full well that when I dropped this thing off, I delivered it on a Wednesday, Wednesday morning.

And by Wednesday afternoon, no later than Thursday morning, assuming it took them a little longer to get something done.

But Thursday morning, they had a family event, a wedding, I believe, wedding venue, that was starting in this really cool barn thing that he built for the whole family.

So to me, that's the benefit.

The benefit for early turnaround and use and abuse without concern, that would be the one.

And then the other thing is, you know, I'm just sick and tired of watching all of us dance around the exterior problems.

And when I say the problems is, we legit can't control the weather, and we're not going to shut down client projects during wintertime, when there's no way for us to control sealing something.

Again, sealers are sealers.

And then you put it outside, and depending on where you are, they might get snowed on, rained on, or morning dew if you're by the coast.

I always think of Mike Wellman, you know, white male, you know, and, you know, the very difficult situation he particularly goes through, living down in San Luis Obispo.

He's gone through every version of sealer out there, period, and continues to find coatings.

They just don't last for him at all.

ICT chemistries have done the best, but they still have the, you know, inevitable, he sealed it, he held on to it in his shop, he goes out and stalls it.

You know, that night, it's right there on the coast, it's covered in dew, and inevitably, he's getting called back for, you know, white marks or whatever the case may be.

So this just led me down, again, following this path of where I've been with my current chemistry and mineral reactions, and then following that into everything I've, you know, let's say adopted and learned through ceramic chemistries, and, you know, just built something that I thought would be pretty cool.

I've been using it for a year, and then ended up opening it up, you know, post Phil Courtney, open it up to other people.

And it's pretty cool, man.

I mean, I dig it, I dig it.

So now I can seal something, put it outside, and not freak out about it.

You know what I mean?

And so I like that, I like that.

It's been working for me, very, very happy with it.

In this case, again, me being pros and cons, the only con I can come up with with Fusion is that you need to be diligent with the torch.

You need to understand, you know, what I call it the surface pop temperature.

You need to understand what that temperature needs to create the catalyst effect.

And if you don't achieve it, which Phil didn't to begin with, and this is all on the ICT forum, if anybody wants to go take a look, then things could leave scars, wet objects and so forth.

But when it's done correctly, man, it takes a heck of an abuse very, very quickly, very quickly, and continues long term without sacrificing all the stuff we've done over the years.

A client can still use the splay on ceramics for long term durability in their own home.

It's it all it's completely compatible with all my systems.

So did that answer the question long winded way?

Was that the short answer, Jon?

That was a short answer.

I'm just sitting here watching the clock like, when is this going to end?

When is this going to end?

Did you ever watch the Joe Rogan?

Did you watch the Joe Rogan podcast with Donald Trump?

No.

Or listen to it?

I watched parts of it.

Yeah.

Trump was talking about the weave.

He loves the weave when he tells the story.

Dude, you just wove a short answer into 14 minutes of a weave.

You were over here, then over there, then up here, then Phil Courtney didn't do it right, and then over here, and then St.

Louis Obispo.

Yes.

I guess what I'm saying is the whole idea of this particular technology is adopted from use and experience.

That's what it is.

Sorry.

What was that?

Well, it's adopted from use and experience, looking and seeing the difficulties that we all have or the minefield that we work through and around, and once again, trying to design something that can handle that.

Is that your final answer, Jon?

No, it'll never be my final answer.

All right, Jesus.

I fell asleep for a while.

No, you should.

It'll make sense when you use it.

Yeah, none of that matters to me.

I just want to know, why do I want to use it?

I want to use it because I want to put it in an environment and have immediate use with no darkening.

Done.

Yeah, no darkening, and again, and stain resistance immediately.

No stickiness, none of the bull crap that we all deal with, and we all do our best to tell ourselves, oh, it's okay when a fly gets stuck in the film and we got to sand it out.

You're talking about topicals from other companies, not ICT.

Correct.

Yes.

No, not ICT.

This goes back to, yeah, no, I want to be ceiling and have the table saw running 10 feet away and not worry about it.

Yeah.

Back in the day when I used to do E32K, EAP, EcoTough, any of those, you'd apply it, and yeah, you had a two, three-hour window after applying that you couldn't do anything because any dust would be stuck in the surface.

It was just part of the...

No, same.

I have plenty of projects back when, and I know Steve from SureCreate and 327, and, boy, man, I used it, and oh my god.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess what I'm saying, now I look back and I'm willing to say, oh my god.

But when you were using it, it was just part of the game you played.

You know what I mean?

It was as good as it was at the time.

Exactly.

It was what it was.

You know, same.

We end up trying to make these curtains and all this stuff to kind of protect, because otherwise we just had to shut the whole shop down, you know, to try for a ceiling day and nothing else could be done in between, and trying to keep the humidity right.

Or, you know, it's just, anyway.

We did it.

The performance, again, I got plenty of projects that we went back to for a variety of reasons.

I don't want to just blame the sealer.

It is what it is.

But yeah, those days are just done for me.

It's done.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's move on to the next question here, Jon.

I greatly regret asking that right out of the gates.

What else you want to know?

What else you want to know?

Do you want to know how to count those numbers?

Jesus, take the wheel.

Fibers.

Alicia Dietz.

82 techs versus 135 techs.

Fibers.

What are the differences, advantages, disadvantages of each?

How does it change the flow of the mix?

Ghosting performance?

Thanks.

You're the fiber guy, Jon.

You've been all down the fiber rabbit hole.

You want to answer that?

Well, I don't know how technical she wants.

The idea of the tex is very much like denier.

Anyway, it's the thickness of the fibers, the total fiber.

And the general idea has been that a stronger, thicker fiber, now we're specifically talking about glass, has advantages in strength, specifically tensile strength, than let's say compared to a monofilament fiber.

All right, so technically, an 82 tex fiber being smaller, and let's just say pros and cons, a smaller fiber, stealthier fiber, okay?

Small, again, comparatively speaking, and again, we're talking about thickness.

So think of like a, I don't know, a thick toothpick versus a thin little toothpick kind of idea.

Because there's not that big of a difference.

What is there, about 35, 40% type of difference.

So yeah, number one, I would say you have the potential of it being more stealthy, comparatively speaking, to the big 135 or bigger 135.

But this is where the whole information kind of goes sideways.

Because comparing another fiber, your thought process would be that the 82 tex, again, we're talking pound for pound, does have a higher total fiber load.

Meaning, again, let's say one's got 1,000 fibers versus 100 fibers, but they both weigh a pound.

So obviously, based on all of our experience, that 100 fibers in a pound should be more flowable than the 1,000 fibers a pound.

But in this case, no.

It doesn't, it doesn't, the relevance doesn't, it has to do with the sizing anyway, the slip, if you will, the coating that they put on the fibers.

So the 82 tex fibers, I'd say extremely comparable in flow to the 135.

And then ultimately, pound for pound, you have a higher total fiber load with the 82s compared to the 135.

So if you really put those head to head, the 82s are going to give you an increase in total strength, specifically tensile strength.

And to me, the easiest way to think about it is, think of sheets, right?

The way we look at thread counts.

600 thread count versus a 300 thread count.

So a 600 thread count just helps you get a higher quality.

Sheet, supposed to last longer, feel better, et cetera, et cetera.

That's the way I look at the 82 versus 135.

I mean, hopefully, that makes sense.

And then ultimately, the way it boils down is a person needs to run it and do your best to run head to head.

The 82s typically come in about half inch or 5 eighths in length.

So if you're going to run a comparison, don't run a 3 quarters 135, get a half inch 135, run them head to head with whatever plasticizer, whatever load you're running, and then leave it up to yourself.

But I think I could be wrong, but I think most of us are all switching over to the 82s.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, when I talked to Hiram years and years ago about this, he was saying on paper, the smaller fiber, because as you're saying, you're batching it based on weight.

So there's more fibers.

You know, there's 1,000 versus 500 of the thicker fiber.

And on paper, you're going to have more surface area contact with the fiber, so you're going to have a higher strength concrete.

But he was like, ah, it's negligible.

He was like, you know, find what you're happy with.

And back then, the technology of the mix being 50-50 sand, cement and a polymer and then a plasticizer from Grace Chemicals, I did get better flow with the bigger fiber, thicker fiber because there was less surface area to create friction as I was pouring.

So when I was doing SCC, I got a much more leveled out, smooth SCC than I was with the smaller fiber.

But mixed design and technology and plasticizer technology has come so far in the last 20 years that that's a non-issue now.

And so the benefit of the smaller fiber is stealthiness.

I mean, that's really the benefit.

The bigger fibers, if they get close to the surface, they definitely ghost a lot more because it's a bigger fiber.

So the smaller fiber, if they get close to the surface, they're a lot less noticeable.

Yeah, 100%.

And that's what I would say for any of us doing what we're doing.

The choice for the 82, I don't know, man, I think at the end of the day, if you ask, I would be shocked if anybody making sinks and countertops and vanity tops and it would be like, oh man, I gotta get the, I have to have the highest tensile strength.

Oh, give me a break.

We don't care.

I don't think any of us are looking at that at all.

We're simply looking at how nice are these pieces gonna look when it's done.

That's it.

How nice is it gonna look?

Is it gonna look like the quality that I can charge for or not and having toothpicks, let's say show up in the face?

Well, that's a rough sell unless you get a whole lot of it.

So it looks like you had a bunch of straw or something in it, which might be pretty cool.

But otherwise, we try to go for the stealthiness.

And if bang for buck, they're both about the same strength and bang for buck, they both give similar flow, and then ultimately then I'm gonna go with the smaller fiber for the better potential and stealthiness.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, well, the next question, Jon, again, it's a name that's gonna be hard for me.

Urina-fer, urina, I don't know.

Y-R-N-E-H, F-E-H-R, urina, I don't know.

I'm bad at pronunciation.

But how do you guys achieve a slip resistant finish on a shower base, you know, i.e.

a shower pan?

How do you achieve a slip resistant finish?

There's a couple ways.

One, which is the way we'd approach it with ICT sealer, would be to profile the concrete after you de-mold it.

So you just do a heavy acid etch on the concrete, you create texture, and then you seal it, and then the surface is profiled to create a more slip resistant finish.

The other method would be to add...

Somebody actually posted on here, Shark Grip, I think is what it's called.

Yeah, Shark Grip, Rhino Grip.

Yeah, there's a bunch of different companies that make it.

It's just a really fine sand, essentially, correct, Jon?

Yeah, that's basically what it is.

Yeah, so it's just a really, really fine sand.

But you mix in with the topical sealer, a coating, and then when you apply that, there's texture in the surface, and that's going to create non-slip as well.

And that's been used on normal flatwork concrete for a long time to create slip-resistant finishes.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

No, I mean, those really are your two choices, and then you got to go with the pros and cons of either one.

So to me, the pro of etching the concrete and creating the profile in the concrete is that's extremely difficult to wear away, right?

I mean, somebody walking around on their bare feet and water, I mean, that's going to be really tough to get rid of that.

It's been shown time and time again by mixing it into your coatings, you know, one way or another, that's, you know, slowly going to wear away because coatings are not, they're not as, they're not going to last as well as the concrete itself.

That's just the way it is.

So people take that into mind, then my choice is always going to be to go with the concrete, and that would be my recommendation.

Yeah, I did stairs a long time ago for a customer in Scottsdale, Arizona, stair treads, and code required a non-slip edge.

Like the first inch and a half had to be textured for non-slip on these treads.

What I did is I went down to Home Depot and I got the 3M anti-slip tape.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I put that in my form on the very front edge, and I cast over it, and I just got the inverse of it, which is still the same texture because it's like very textured.

And I cast that texture into the tread, each one of them.

Dude, it was awesome.

It was awesome.

I've only done it that one time, but if you're doing a shower pan, if you wanted to, you could do a couple strips of that.

Make it part of the design if you wanted to.

People add that stuff in their showers.

They have the clear tape they put in.

Hotels do that a lot.

You'll see that in hotels.

So they'll put that in to make them non-slip, but you could do a couple strips of that as well if you plan ahead and it's part of your design.

The only downside is it's pretty aggressive.

So keeping it clean is a little bit more difficult because it's a deep up and down texture.

So that's the downside of it, but it looks cool.

Looks really cool.

It was a good way to get non-slip.

OK, next question.

Let me look at my list here.

Color matching slurry.

That's on my list.

How to color match slurry.

Let me tell you the way I color match slurry Jon Schuler.

Hit me.

I'll hit you with it.

I've told this before, but it's a good tip.

I used to have a guy that worked for me, Jeremy.

And Jeremy was a master at slurring and getting the color right.

This is, dude, way back in the day when I was using the OG Buddy Rhoads mix, and then I was using Quick Crete 5000, and we had a big steel vibrating table.

We'd put all the concrete in there, and we had still rebar in it.

You know, C grid, the carbon fiber grid, but it had so much memory, we had to zip tie it to rebar to get it to lay flat.

So at that point, why were we even using it?

Oh, my God, you didn't?

Oh, it just literally like a fence came back and...

Yeah, I mean, it was insane for anybody that lived back then.

We would put carbon fiber grid in our concrete for reinforcement, but it had so much memory because it's coated in epoxy and a roll, had so much memory that we had zip tie to half-inch rebar, number four rebar.

And at that point, why are we even using it?

We're putting number four rebar in there to hold the c-grid flat.

It was so stupid.

And that stuff was so expensive.

It was like five bucks a square foot or something.

It was insane.

Yeah, it was expensive, yeah.

But anyways...

C-grid, right?

It was called c-grid.

Yeah, c-grid.

And they used to really heavily promote it, advertise World of Concrete, all that stuff.

I don't think they're still around.

Maybe they are.

I don't know.

The technology's gotten a lot better, too.

I remember the last time I saw that stuff, it was very flexible, like soft, versus being like coated in epoxy and memory.

It was fencing.

It was fencing.

It was worse than fencing.

Fencing was easier to work with.

But we would de-mold our concrete, and when I tell you it looked like Swiss cheese, that's not even close to how bad it was.

I mean, there was air pockets over the whole surface, air pockets the size of marbles, everywhere.

So every piece we made had to get slurried and polished.

Every piece.

It was just part of the process.

You're talking about the sealer earlier, like you just accept it.

At that time, that was the process.

There was no better process.

We weren't like doing this because we're being cheap, we're trying to save money.

No, we were doing this because that was the only way at that point in time.

So Jeremy, we would, you know, we do color sample for a client.

Let's say it's 3% black oxide, right?

So we would do 3% black oxide, we'd cast it, de-mold it.

If you just mixed up slurry at 3% black oxide and applied it to the concrete, because that concrete cured in a form against the surface devoid of air at a higher temperature because of exotherm or whatever, the slurry would never match.

It would always be a different color once it cured and you polished it.

So Jeremy figured out, he didn't weigh the pigment for the slurry.

What he would do is he would mix up slurry with no pigment, and then he'd get the concrete that we were going to apply slurry to, he'd get it wet.

So he'd take like a wet towel and wipe it, and he'd start adding pigment to the slurry and mixing it and holding it up to the wet concrete and checking the color, and add a little bit more pigment, stir it up, hold it up, add a little bit more pigment, stir it up, hold it up.

And when the pigmented slurry matched the color of the wet concrete surface, that's when he would apply the slurry.

It's a very analog way to do it, but I'll tell you, those pieces back then, the slurry was about as good as it could get, once it cured and we polished it and we sealed it, you could see it because it was a different texture, didn't have the same sand particles and everything, but that being said, the color was pretty spot on every time.

And that was his method, and it was a really good method, it worked well.

So that's how I would recommend it.

What are your thoughts?

No, you're exactly right.

Again, I think I talked about the vanity with fusion.

This was a hand-placed layup kind of idea.

I might post the picture later, but they had a lot of, gosh, I forget what this like a slate stone on the floor and the whole nine yards.

Anyway, where I'm going with it is this had a titanium shaker beige and walnut color put in the vanity.

So, you know, you're going to have voids.

They wanted voids, but they didn't want it to look like it had some kind of disease.

You know what I mean?

So, just what you're saying.

After we get done processing, I wet a little spot, you mix up your slurry, I put the titanium bump, and then I'd keep adding the walnut until it gave me the good background color.

And then that being said, I matched it too well to begin with, so you couldn't see any of the voids at all.

And then I had to go back and actually slurry it a second time in a lighter color in various spots to create an even, uneven finish.

So that's my long way of saying, I thought that's the way everybody did it.

If that's not the way you're doing it, that's the best way to do it.

Meaning, wet a spot in your concrete, mix up the slurry, match that wet spot, and you'll get things pretty tight.

Yeah.

Or pretty, you know, as close as close can be.

I'm going to tell another little trick here, Jon.

One that I've never told, but it's a good trick, and I've used it, and I've used it.

Now, this is going to stay between me and you, Jon, okay?

Yeah.

I'm not going to tell anybody.

Don't tell anybody.

It's our little secret.

Every now and then, you'll get a piece that slurry is not going to resolve some kind of color difference.

And what I mean by that is, sometimes I'll cast, let's say I'm casting white concrete, and there's a seam in my form, and due to hydraulic pressure or whatever, the form moves a little bit, so I demold it.

But there's this ridge that I have to polish off.

And when I polish off that ridge, now it exposes sands only in that line.

And so you have white concrete, white concrete, and exposed sand in a line, which stands out like a sore thumb.

You're like, oh my God, what am I going to do?

You know, am I going to rebuild this form and recast this?

What you can do is get a paint wheel from a paint manufacturer.

It doesn't matter who it is, but where I'm at, it's Sherwin-Williams.

So I get a paint wheel, I hold it up, I find that color of paint.

I go to Sherwin-Williams, I get that paint in matte, matte interior paint.

I just get sample size or quart, whatever the smallest they'll mix.

I come back, I take that paint, I mix it with water, and I take a little sponge, and I'll just dab it on, and it's super diluted paint on that area, and I'll feather it out.

Let it dry, do it again, let it dry, do it again, and I'll just layer it, I'll build up slowly.

And then when it's all done, I'll seal the piece, right?

And this is all done post acid etching.

I'll tell you what, man, I have resolved some issues doing that, that when it was done, you couldn't point it out if I told you it was there.

If you looked for it, you couldn't find it, right?

It was so subtle, because you're not applying like opaque paint.

It's very diluted, you're just laying it.

It's the same thing as like doing like a stain type thing.

But when we're talking about slurry, I think about like, if people have slurry and it's problematic, maybe you slurred a patch, and it's really standing out and it's bugging you.

And you're like, I can't deliver this to a client, I have to recast this.

Do this little paint trick, go pick it up to loot at the water, take a sponge, sponge it around, feather it out, kind of do that a few times, and then seal the piece.

I'm going to bet that's going to resolve the problem.

Everything's going to be great, everybody's going to be happy, client's going to be psyched, you're going to feel good about it.

So that's just a little secret, a little tip.

I don't use it often, but it saved my butt a few times from having to recast a piece.

Yeah, right on.

Yeah, I can hear the haters now.

Brandon sponge paints his concrete.

We always do like to paint his stuff.

That's why it looks good.

It's paint.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the only other thing I was going to add to this is we're talking about slurry and how to color match slurry.

Now, and depending on the techniques, and I think a lot of people, when they asked that question per the original post, it was related to monolithic color, right?

And probably an SCC is what a lot of these people do.

So again, I'm going to get the haters rammed up a little bit here.

My number one to avoid that is move to a mix that's designed around its ability not to create the pinholes.

I know that sounds terrible, but a lot of these situations arise, not because, oh, the silicone bead, and hey, we all know these kinds of things can happen.

It arises because you happen to be using a mix that the air either creates air in the mixing process or B, was never designed to be used as a self-consolidating mix anywhere.

So a lot of times when I see this, and I don't want to sound like a hater, with people using things like Cementol as their mixes.

I'm definitely not anti-Cementol at all.

I think I've told everybody and get pissy, I do stuff with CTS Rapid Set.

So I'm not anti any of that stuff, but those particular products were not designed for self-consolidating quote unquote GFRC.

And it's just the way it is.

So, and color matching into those, because you and I are talking about using like federal white cement and so forth and so on.

With Rapid Set, the tone of the sulfa-aluminous cement, it changes, and that's why people will see with that particular, sometimes it's a little more tan or less tan or whatever the case may be.

So my point being is, those people doing that, that's always going to be a challenge.

It just is what it is.

In that case, you just need to talk to your clients and be understanding of what it is that you're making for them.

And as long as they're okay with it, you're going to have to find a way to be okay with it.

Otherwise, switch to some of these other materials that have actually done their best to design around the very difficulties that we all try to work around.

And that is creating a mix that's, to the best of its ability, devoid of those potentials.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like, well, people are, like you said, cement all wasn't designed for that application.

So it's like, you know, you're baking a cake and you see salt over here and like, well, it looks like sugar, you know.

It's not made for this, but damn it, I'm going to use it.

And you put it in your, you put it in your batter and you bake the cake and you eat it.

And you're like, man, this tastes like crap.

Well, it tastes like crap because you're not using the right stuff.

You know, it's a granular white stuff.

Looks like the sugar, but it's not sugar.

That's not what it was for.

So if you're using RapidSet, which I know some people do, and hey, that's great.

I think as long as your samples reflect the end product and the customer likes the sample, then great.

You know, but if you're trying to achieve the same workflow that you get with products like Kodiak Pro, you're not going to get that workflow because of the inherent issues with that product used in that application, being entrained air and pinholes and everything else.

You're going to have to always slurry and polish every single time.

That's just part of it.

And as long as whomever you are, if you're okay with that, then man, everybody else is too.

You know, it's whatever fits your business lifestyle and the whole nine yards.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah, I mean, like, I look at what my brother, my brother who's, I wouldn't say he's back working with me, but he's helping with with projects per se, and he's really focused on his own project, making these cool things ultimately will probably be for the military.

But watching him cast these tall verticals, I forget what he calls them.

I mean, I don't even know what they are, to be honest with you, but meaning what they're used for.

To see these things come out so ridiculously clean is just once again, not a testament to the materials per se, but a testament of what 20 years of experience has finally moved us away from.

And that's what I love.

I agree.

Next question, Jon, on my list here.

Somebody asked, you told me that somebody's looking for a recommendation.

They're in Brisbane, Australia.

Good day, mate.

Down in Australia.

Looking for the best place to get Concrete Mix.

We have a distributor in Australia.

His name is Sammy Jarvela.

Yeah.

And his company is in the mix.

Yeah, in the mix.

Look him up.

Sammy's a super nice guy, super knowledgeable, very helpful.

And he just restocked on Kodiak too.

So I don't know if it's been delivered yet, but I know he placed an order.

So hit up Sammy.

Good guy.

Yeah, if you want that quality in.

The difficulty with at least one of the materials that's been discussed on that particular post is, that's materials that's now been used by companies that have like gone out of business.

So I just, again, just be wary.

That's all I'm saying.

Look at the materials, realize what they are.

We're talking about the materials that are being recommended on that post or materials that people, other companies have used, and then their companies end up going under.

Correct.

So you're saying causation, there's no correlation, right?

Yeah.

But if you connect the dots on your own, you might say, well, that might not be the best material to use if I want to stay in business.

I'm just going to say beware.

Yeah, just beware.

Yeah.

And you try not to get caught up in the same cycle.

That's all.

That's just a fair warning, not anti anybody or anything.

Just a fair warning.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the end of the podcast, Jon, but I'm just going to keep bantering for a minute.

Yeah.

Keep going.

Thoughts.

Yeah.

So yesterday, you know, I talked about the green pigment for this Ram the Earth project I'm working on.

And I did these Ramcrete or this Ramcrete piece in the class.

It was green.

And during the class, somebody asked, you know, how much pigments your project going to take?

And I did the math, and it's going to be over 100,000 in pigment.

I'm like, oh my god, oh Jesus, you know, I can't spend 100,000 on green pigment.

So I ordered some other pigments and I did test yesterday.

I made 15 Ramcrete samples using some standard oxide pigments from Solomon that are brown in tone.

But they're great.

The pigments are beautiful.

I'll post some photos of them, the samples.

They look really cool.

But I had this weird out-of-body experience, this disassociation.

I told you about it when I was batching, because I had to batch 15 little micro batches to make these samples.

And I'm getting mix out of the Kodiak Pro bag.

I'm like, I can't believe I'm a partner in this company.

How weird is this?

I don't even feel like an adult half the time.

I feel like a kid half the time.

I'm all grown up now.

This is so weird that I'm a partner in the company.

It manufactures this insane mix.

It doesn't register half the time, you know?

It doesn't register I have kids half the time.

I can't believe I have kids.

I'm too young to have kids.

I'm 45.

I can't be having kids.

I'm not old enough.

I talk to Amy about that sometimes.

Actually, 45 was going to be my number, and she told me no.

45 to have kids?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I wasn't far off.

Late 30s.

Yeah, my son, he was born when I was 40, 42.

So yeah, so I was 42 with him, but he was a surprise.

But yeah, I mean, it's just weird.

It's weird.

It's awesome.

I mean, Kodiak Pro, I'm so thankful that we launched this company, and it was something that I didn't have a plan to do.

You know, nobody ever says, when I grow up, I want to own a materials company, a concrete materials company.

That's my dream.

That wasn't my dream.

I love making things.

That's what I love.

But with material suppliers that I was using and the issues with the materials, the materials themselves and the suppliers, like how rude and disrespectful and difficult they were to work with on top of the materials going down in quality, quality control issues, everything else.

It was something I had to do.

It's not something I wanted to do, it's something I had to do.

But hindsight's 20-20.

At the time, it was very difficult.

It sucked.

It was a huge expense.

I wasn't prepared for it.

It was a lot at the time.

Looking back, man, I'm so glad it happened because this mix and the sealer and the advancements that we've made with Kodiak, it just, I'm so psyched.

I'm so happy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So just a deep thought I had yesterday.

Well, that is a good thought because I still, you know, again, we're just talking about it.

I remember when you called me and I'm like, oh, and I was still down on the corner down there in San Francisco.

You know, I'm still holding up my five dollar signs, taking my dentures out.

Yeah, again, I just got to make some money.

Oh, San Francisco, the armpit of America.

Thanks.

OK.

All right.

No, but you were, dude, you were so jaded back then.

You were so jaded.

You were pissed.

You didn't want anything.

Yeah, you were done with the industry.

You were done with concrete.

You were burned out.

Done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Not anymore, man.

Not anymore.

I get, you know, super excited for anybody who listened to the first 15 minutes of me trying to give a very simple explanation.

Stella got her groove back, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely enjoy it.

Everything we're doing again, happy holidays to everybody who got your packages from Brandon.

So yeah, man, it's this ride's been great.

We got over some of the early hurdles and, and let's say difficulties working with other people, but it's going great.

I love it.

Yeah.

It's surreal sometimes.

It's surreal, but I'm very happy that we did it.

And I'm excited to be on this journey.

And I'm excited to continue to make improvements and evolve and just make this as good as we can make it across the board.

So I'm super excited about it.

And I hope our customers feel appreciated, and I hope they feel the passion that we have for the materials and for the company.

And yeah, so I'm just, you know, Thanksgiving is time to be thankful.

I'm very thankful.

I'm thankful for you, Jon.

I'm thankful for your beautiful mind, your big brain, because I don't have that, man.

I don't have, I don't have that.

But I'm thankful for our customers.

We have a lot of very passionate customers, very loyal customers.

And, you know, like you said, there were some hurdles in the beginning.

There were some things that were very difficult, but the customers stuck through it.

They understood that, you know, that's just part of the process of getting something started from scratch, starting from the ground up.

You know, there's going to be some hiccups.

And we've been working through those over the years.

And I don't want to jinx anything, knock on wood, but things are continually getting better and better and better and better.

And, you know, just continue to sharpen that sword.

And we'll keep bringing new things on board, but that we all see a need for and what we're doing based on our experience and input from everybody.

That's one of the funnest things I'm having right now, is just watching the input and getting the text and the messages from people using the Fusion.

You know, I love it, man.

I love it.

And I'll take their input if something needs to be, you know, whatever change or handle a different environment.

So no, this ride is fun again.

So thank you to everybody.

Yep.

Well, Jon, let's wrap it up.

I got stuff to do.

Okay, man.

Cool.

Well, happy Thanksgiving, my friend.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Concrete Podcast listeners out there in podcast land listening.

So happy Thanksgiving to you.

And I'll catch you next week, buddy.

Sounds great.

Adios.

Adios.