Master the Art: AR Glass Fibers, Sealing, and RammCrete Revealed

Get ready to level up your craft. In this episode of The Concrete Podcast, we’re tackling the nitty-gritty that makes all the difference. You’ll hear which AR Glass Fibers are worth your time, insider tips for caulking your forms (and keeping that color just right), and how to stop making those pesky sealer mistakes once and for all. Plus, BG’s fired up about a new mold-making product that he learned about in the Facebook group. Oh, and don’t miss out—big news about the upcoming RammCrete Workshop this November in Kansas. Time to mix up some magic, y’all.

 

Sealing with ICT

1. Torch the Surface.

2. 3:1 Sealer Application

   - Mix 3 parts water to 1 part sealer.

   - Rinse a 3/8” microfiber roller and remove excess water.

   - Apply the diluted sealer with a spray bottle and roll.

   - Keep the surface evenly saturated for 1-3 minutes, then leave a liberal amount to dry.

3. Torch the Surface.

4. 2:1 Sealer Application

   - Mix 2 parts water to 1 part sealer.

   - Rinse a 3/8” microfiber roller and remove excess water.

   - Apply the diluted sealer with a spray bottle and roll.

   - Keep the surface evenly saturated for 1-3 minutes, then leave a liberal amount to dry.

5. Torch the Surface.

6. 1:1 Sealer Application

   - Mix 1 part water to 1 part sealer.

   - Rinse a 3/8” microfiber roller and remove excess water.

   - Apply the diluted sealer with a spray bottle and roll.

   - Evenly saturate the surface, then leave a liberal amount to dry.

7. Torch the Surface.

8. Vinegar Wipe

   - Soak a microfiber cloth in grocery store white vinegar.

   - Squeeze out excess and wipe the surface as if cleaning glass.

   - Allow to dry.

   *Steps 6, 7, and 8 may be repeated until the concrete surface no longer darkens when wiped with vinegar.*

9. Full Strength Sealer Application

   - Rinse a 3/8” microfiber roller and remove excess water.

   - Apply the full-strength sealer with a spray bottle and roll.

   - Evenly saturate the surface, then leave a thin layer to dry.

10. Torch the Surface.

11. Vinegar Wipe

    - Soak a microfiber cloth in grocery store white vinegar.

    - Squeeze out excess and wipe the surface as if cleaning glass.

    - Allow to dry.

12. “Wipe on” Full Strength Sealer Application

    - Rinse a microfiber cloth and wring out excess water.

    - Spray full-strength sealer on the surface and wipe with the microfiber cloth as if cleaning glass, leaving a thin layer to dry.

13. Torch the Surface.

14. Vinegar Wipe

    - Soak a microfiber cloth in grocery store white vinegar.

    - Squeeze out excess and wipe the surface as if cleaning glass.

    - Allow to dry.

15. 2nd “Wipe on” Full Strength Sealer Application

    - Rinse a microfiber cloth and wring out excess water.

    - Spray full-strength sealer on the surface and wipe with the microfiber cloth as if cleaning glass, leaving a thin layer to dry.

16. Torch the Surface.

17. Vinegar Wipe

 

#ConcreteCraft #ARGlassFibers #SealingMistakes #FormBuilding #CaulkingTips #MoldMaking #RammCrete #ConcreteDesign #ConstructionLife #Craftsmanship

TRANSCRIPT

All right, here we go.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

Man, it's been two weeks again.

I looked last time.

Remember I said I thought it had been like three or four weeks?

It had been three and a half weeks.

I looked at the dates.

I was right, you were wrong.

You were like, oh no, it's only been a couple.

I'm like, nah, it's been longer, no.

Yeah, I think it's only been a couple.

No, it was almost four.

It's three and a half on the dot, only three days away from four weeks.

This time it's been two weeks.

Last week, we were supposed to do a podcast with Joe, Joe Bates, and I got tied up in a meeting that went on and on and on, and I wasn't able to make it back to my shopping time to do it.

So anyways, we're doing it.

Just me and you this week.

I think Joe is going to join us next week, hopefully, if he can work it into the schedule.

But it's good to be back, John.

It is good to be back.

Well, and it's good to hear that.

I mean, I know that meeting went really late for you, but, you know, finally they figured out.

Again, I hate to call them sex toys, but, you know, so you got the right size for the sex toys.

They had to change the tooling, make it bigger.

You know, how big can we make this thing?

And this is going on forever.

But, you know, the MacGyver dissolution and I'm doing OK now.

So sort it out.

I got to sort it out.

It's good to hear.

Joe and I were on this side going, what is going on with this guy?

And you find out Brandon's on the other end going, how much bigger?

All right.

Enough of that.

So in the meantime, Jon, I have listed a workshop, a RammCrete workshop.

So I put a poll up and asked people, if I held a RammCrete, when would be the optimal time?

And there was a window in November.

A lot of people are saying we're really good for them.

So I booked it for November 16th and 17th, RammCrete.

And if you don't know what RamCrete is, it's rammed earth aesthetic using our high performance Kodiak Pro materials.

And so what that does is rammed earth is the hottest thing with architects and designers.

It's what they're all going to right now.

And if you're able to make furniture or sinks or cladding or tiles or some people making tile with it with that aesthetic, that opens up a whole world of possibilities as artisans, as craftsmen to get into demographics and markets that you're not in right now because you don't offer those aesthetics.

So RammCrete is a one and a half day class.

Focus specifically on that.

We're going to make a really, really cool piece.

I've been working on the design, so I'm excited about it.

But we're going to make a rammed earth piece for the studio here using RammCrete.

So that's November 16th and 17th.

You go to concretedesignschool.com to learn more and register.

Another thing, Jon, is I have the Fundamentals Class, the basics class, coming up next weekend, September 28th and 29th, essentially.

So, yes, it's pretty much not this weekend, but the following weekend.

And that's a one and a half day class.

And that's a basics class.

And that's to get off the ground with knowledge.

That's awesome.

yes, for people that are interested in concrete, they want to start off in the right foot.

They don't want to make a lot of mistakes, waste a lot of time and money doing things incorrectly, or watching YouTube videos of people that...

You know, God bless YouTube.

I'm guilty of going to YouTube.

I think we all go to YouTube, you know.

If I'm trying to change a fuse on my truck, the first thing I do is YouTube.

I change fuse on Dodge Ram, you know.

We all do it.

But unfortunately, the professional mechanics out there aren't making videos on how to change fuses on a Dodge Ram, right?

It's Weekend Warriors making videos.

And God bless those people, they're doing God's work.

Yeah.

But a lot of the concrete videos, I'd say the vast majority of the concrete videos, the how to, again, are Weekend Warriors.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

And I applaud them for taking the time to record and publish these things.

But the truth of the matter is it's not pro level.

And if you start off on the DIY route with this, especially this, with concrete, you're going to end up, you know, making a lot of mistakes for a long time and maybe developing bad habits that ultimately will end up costing you so much more in the long run.

So if you want to get into concrete, you're interested in it.

The basics class, the Fundamentals Class coming up is a really good, low cost weekend class.

We do it over the weekend.

So travel is affordable.

You're not taking time off work and it's not an expensive class.

So concretedesignschool.com for that.

So those are my two workshop announcements.

I have a list.

I just want to add to the RammCrete for a second.

Yeah, go ahead.

I really, again, I haven't done it yet, but did you see that Vincent's sink that he posted just a minute ago?

Oh, it was incredible.

Yeah, it's incredible.

I mean, to see what people are doing and the ability to get these kind of textures and looks, I don't know, man.

It's really cool to see this moving forward.

Yeah, Alicia Dietz, she's doing amazing stuff.

There's so many people doing incredible Rammcrete pieces, and we're only scratching the surface on what's possible.

The sky's the limit.

We're not even coming close to realizing the potential of this look.

So I'm excited about it.

And the piece we're going to make here is going to be pretty ambitious in the sense of the form.

I've been thinking about it in my head.

Speaking of the form, Jon, this has to do with the form.

I'm going to build, pre-build part of the form ahead of time for the Fundamentals class, is there was a great conversation on the Kodiak Pro discussion page from Josh Bradshaw.

And he was talking about a conversion varnish he buys at Sherwin-Williams called Sher-wood Water White.

Water White, it's like Walter White, you know, breaking bad.

But it's a conversion varnish.

And he's found great success with that.

Over using polyester resin, fiberglass resin.

So if you're building a form, say, out of MDF, like a ramp sink form or something like that, typically we do that out of MDF.

We'd bond to it.

We do all the stuff.

And then we would take fiberglass resin.

We'd resin it, let it set, resin it, let it set, resin it, let it sand it.

You know, and it's quite a bit of work when it's all said and done.

And it's expensive.

polyester resin is not cheap.

So he posted that he was using this conversion varnish, which is a catalyzed varnish.

It's a high solids, like 50 to 60 percent solids varnish.

Is he spraying it?

Yeah, he sprayed it with HVLP.

But I want to say Phil Courtney, let me pull it up.

Yeah, I'm looking.

I actually went just because you were talking about, but I'm not seeing it.

I'll find it.

Hold on.

I think I need to search.

Hey, dude, your horrible technology.

Josh Bradshaw.

Yeah, Bradshaw.

It may have been on the concrete.

Let me see.

It could have been on this other page, the Concrete Countertops page.

I felt like it was on Kodiak Pro.

Let me see here.

Bradshaw.

Yeah, now it's on the Concrete Countertops, Concrete Sinks, Concrete Furniture and Concrete tiles, July 24th, Josh Bradshaw is one of his vests.

So I was on the wrong page, sorry, my memory.

But he's posting about it, and it's called Sherwin Williams, Sher-wood, Water White.

Phil Courtney mentioned it to him before, and then Phil Courtney chimed in and says how he uses it.

He essentially dilutes it first and kind of does a soaker coat, and then he does a light sand on that, and then he does two to three follow-up coats, and then typically he says it doesn't even need to sand it.

It's perfect.

So and everybody's saying that's using it, and then Gabriel jumped in.

It's like, oh my God, this is the best thing I've found in the last five years thanks to Phil Courtney and Josh bresher.

I'm like, Gabriel, how long we've been friends, bro?

This is the best thing you found in five years, and you don't even mention it to me?

Like, what's going on here?

What's going on?

But anyways.

loyalties, dude, loyalty.

You find some good and you keep it to yourself.

But Josh made this post, and Phil Courtney chimed in with how to use it.

So I went and picked them up this morning.

I'm excited about it.

So I went to Sherwin-Williams, and luckily we have an industrial division of Sherwin-Williams here in Wichita.

I went to the retail store first, and the guy was an idiot.

You need lacquer?

I'm like, no, it's called Sherwood.

It's a conversion varnish.

Oh, I never heard of it.

I'm like, yeah, it doesn't surprise me.

You know, you have to order it.

So he finally looks up in the system after, like, he stands there for five minutes, just wasting my time.

It's like, oh, yeah, our industrial store has this in stock.

So I went down there and met the Jon Schuler at Sherwin-Williams, the guy that is like their in-house specialty chemist guy.

And he's like, what are you doing?

And I'm like, I'm building a form and a lot of people have success with it.

So he went and down-packed it for me and printed everything out.

So I'm excited.

I'm going to build the form out of MDF and then do the conversion varnish over it.

This is a three-dimensional form.

And I'm just excited.

It's funny, like, you know, I'm 21 years doing this and you find something new and it's exciting.

So I'm excited to give it a shot.

So anyways, there's that conversion varnish.

That's something I wanted to hit.

I have a list here-

I'm still reading.

I haven't heard a word you said.

I'm still reading.

I found the post.

And so now I'm reading.

Yeah, just give me a moment of silence.

I'll have some coffee while you're doing that.

You just, you take your time, Jon.

Dude, that's awesome.

No, I'm gonna, so I gotta, I'm gonna head down to Sherwin-Williams probably this weekend then.

I'm gonna get some ordered.

That's cool.

Very cool.

Yeah, it wasn't expensive.

A gallon with tax was like 76 bucks.

So it's not...

76 bucks.

Man, that's a couple years ago.

It was like 14.

Yeah.

Well, that's no joke.

That's very true.

But that means that 76 bucks for a gallon is pretty darn cheap.

So, yeah, I'm excited to try it.

So there's that, there's several things.

Well, I say several things.

So I have three things here.

Sealer, Seth Taylor, about fibers and Joshua Bow, about discoloration with Windex when doing caulk or sealant.

Caulk is a dangerous word to say because it can be misconstrued.

So sealant, silicone.

I learned that lesson a hard way.

I was doing an install in Tempe, Arizona at a restaurant called Green.

And it was a black table, black concrete, and it was lunchtime.

And I don't know why we were doing an install during lunch.

People in there eating and it had a seam.

And so I was yelling to one of my guys, Sean, Sean, go to the truck and get the black caulk.

Get the black caulk out of the truck.

And everybody was dying laughing before I realized what I was saying.

And I felt like an idiot.

I felt like an idiot.

And from that moment it's been, Sean, can you get the black silicone out of the truck, please?

Thank you.

Totally changed.

Yeah.

Anyways, it also reminds me, when I was like seven or eight years old, I was in line at school, like the lunch line, right?

And I bent over to pick something off the floor, but I bent at my hips, just like hinged, right, to pick it up.

Yeah.

And everybody died laughing.

And it was the first time I became self-aware, like self-conscious about something, right?

Because up until then, you're just a kid.

You don't know, you know?

What do you mean?

Self-conscious about your butt?

Yeah, the way I've been over since then, I've been at the knees.

Like I squat down to pick something up.

I've never just hinged over at the hips since then.

And I was like six years old, dude.

But it's amazing the first moment you become self-aware and like self-conscious about something.

interesting.

Yeah, that was my first memory being self-conscious about something.

Anyways.

Yeah, I do it on purpose now.

I just throw the soap down.

Well, that's what I was doing last week when I was running late.

Somebody else pick up the soap.

Yeah.

My hips are hurting.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Oh, man.

That's terrible.

Well, before we go down the list, is there anything you want to hit?

No.

Well, you already hit it.

Definitely the sealer one.

I have something I want to wrap up at the end, but with a little story along these lines.

But yeah, let's hit it if I can talk, right?

Well, here's the thing, dude.

I just switched from...

Have you heard of this mushroom coffee called Rise?

Oh, God.

Dude, it's supposed to make you young again.

You're going to be like 14.

Well, you do sound like a babbling infant right now.

I think you drank too much of it.

So I think that's what's doing it.

I know it's...

Anyway, so I think that's what's doing it.

I know something's messing up right now.

I can't talk.

I can't squat.

I'm making stupid jokes.

Pooping in your diaper.

Like, I'm not going to say it, and you probably can't smell it.

But yeah, that actually just happened.

Benjamin Button over there, man.

He drank that coffee.

So, no, I was literally reading his where he used the glass cleaner and stuff.

So, hit me.

I'm going to say, first of all, the silicone, that stuff's junk.

Yeah.

Well, it's not junk, Jon.

But let's talk about the black sealant.

First of all, I thought he used Supreme.

Let me just clear this up, because again, people, we've talked about this in the past, but people might be joining a podcast for the first time, and you didn't hear the previous podcast.

So, when we apply silicone sealant to our forms and the edges, we do it to create a round over.

We do it to also help seal the form up to keep moisture from wicking underneath the melamine.

But when we do that, the sealant that we've always used has been GE Type 2, 100% silicone.

That's what we've always used.

They came out with one called Supreme during COVID, and it is horrible.

Everybody, you know, I heard people telling their horror stories that they were having all these issues with silicone, not curing, sticking to the concrete, being just this gummy mess and staining the concrete, and that's weird.

And what they were doing was they're buying Supreme, which I had never even seen Supreme at the time.

It wasn't on the shelves quite yet.

And so when Supreme came out, I accidentally bought a tube and I did a project.

And sure enough, man, that stuff is garbage, complete garbage.

yes, I'm saying we literally, we doing that cast in place, I just told you about that we'd just finished the project.

We just dropped off the rest of the pieces here, tuesday, well, tuesday and wednesday, yesterday.

And well, I had a piece of white Supreme we were using.

Bro, it wasn't even set up the next day.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's horrible.

Yeah.

So the one that I've used has been GE Type 2 Advanced.

And they have a red and gold label and a blue and gold.

I prefer the red and gold.

I don't know why.

It just feels like it tools better and it sets faster.

Maybe it's the same stuff.

I don't know.

I don't know why they have a red and gold and blue and gold.

They're both advanced.

They're both silicone type 2.

But the red and gold is what I buy.

And that's what he used.

Initially, I thought he was using the Supreme, but no, that's what he used.

But what he was getting are these little water spots on the edge.

And so, first of all, let me tell you how I silicone my forms.

Back in the day, we used to do, first of all, we used to do blue tape per futonchang.

We'd put blue tape on each side and then silicone it and tool it and then peel the tape that would leave a little ridge all the way down and that transferred to the concrete.

If you're doing a deep water polish, whatever, you're gonna take it out, but we don't do a deep water polish, so it's problematic.

So what I did after that was I would take wax, carnauba wax, and I'd wax all my edges.

And then I would silicone it and tool it and let it cure overnight and then peel the excess.

That's great, but then you have this wax in the edges and that was creating discoloration issues in the concrete.

So we have to take a lot of time to take acetone or a magic eraser and stuff and really clean it up.

And it was just another step.

And also you couldn't get on it very quick.

You have to let it cure overnight.

So the next thing that I've done, and this is where I'm at now, is I do the silicone into the form without waxing it or taping it or anything like that.

So I silicone it and then before I tool it, I take the foaming glass cleaner, some ammonia free foaming glass cleaner.

They sell it at Lowe's, Home Depot, Walmart, any hardware store has it.

And it's, you know, blue lid, blue label.

And I spray the silicone with that and then I tool it with my tool.

And most, 98% of the silicone will not stick.

It just comes off on your tool that you use to tool the silicone.

So it's a really quick way to do it.

And it's much easier and cleaner and just, I don't know, I'm having good results with it.

But the trick is you have to get it right the first time because it's really hard to come back and put more because there's going to be that layer of the window cleaner on it, yeah.

So you got to be sure to get enough in there.

You can't get skimpy in some spots and try to add more.

It's not going to work.

What I've seen and what he experienced is if you don't get all the window cleaner residue out of the form, it'll leave little spots on the concrete.

And when I ask that shit and stuff, typically it comes out.

So it's not the end of the world.

But that being said, what I do now is after I do the window cleaner, tool it, let it cure, you know, sometimes I'll cast same day, but I try not to.

I'll let it go to the next morning before I cast if I can.

But I will take a magic eraser with rubbing alcohol.

I go to Walgreens or CVS and I get the strong rubbing alcohol.

I think it's 91%, if I remember.

But I get the strong rubbing alcohol.

I put it in a little dispenser.

They sell them, they're called Just Rite.

J-U-S-T-R-I-T-E, Just Rite, I believe is what they're called.

This red can, little pump dispenser.

And I just put a little bit of that rubbing alcohol on the magic eraser.

And I go around, I clean all the edges.

And that does a couple of things.

A, it gets rid of any little chatter.

So when you tool silicone, it'll leave sometimes like a little chatter along the edge, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know.

The magic eraser just cleans it off perfectly.

So you end up with this perfect transition, round over to the melamine is perfect.

But secondly, it gets rid of all the residue.

So any glass cleaner residue is gone.

It's gone at that point.

So then that problem is no longer there.

The last thing I do, Jon, is I take Gelgloss, G-E-L-G-L-O-S-S, Gelgloss.

And I posted this on this.

And what's his name over in...

 Or, Or Kafri, over in Israel.

He was like, what's Gelgloss?

And I guess they don't have that over there.

But Gelgloss is a cleaner.

It's a countertop cleaner, specifically for, I think, laminate, is where it started.

But they recommend it for granite or whatever.

But it's a really good last step that I do to clean the melamine.

And I'll put it on the form as well, if I have a fiberglass form or a plastic form.

So Gelgloss.

So you spray it in.

It's an aerosol can.

You spray it in.

You take a microfiber, you smear it around, and you just kind of...

It's all wet.

You smear it around, and you let it dry for like five, 10 minutes.

And it'll haze up like wax.

Then you take a clean, dry microfiber and you buff it.

And it just puts a sheen, just...

You know, it's like hydrophobic sheen on the surface.

Great, because concrete is a mirror.

If we have this nice, smooth, shiny surface, the concrete is going to reflect that.

And then the last step is the Aquacon release that I fog in with a cheap Harbor Freight HVLP sprayer.

I fog that in and let it dry for 10 minutes before I cast the concrete.

But that's my protocol.

I have good results with that.

But to answer Josh's question, those little white spots, yes, that's from the glass cleaner, and that's how you prevent that from happening.

I just want to add to that, during that conversation, if anybody's looking for, now, again, I probably shouldn't do this, but I'm recommending something somebody's recommending, and they're recommending the GE Sam charles, Sam, SCS 1000 silicone sealant that you can get on Amazon.

Yeah, who recommended that?

Henry, I think.

Yeah, Henry Caldenbaugh, yeah.

So yeah, SCS 1000 from Amazon.

Yeah, I need to order two of that and try it.

Yeah, the same, I haven't done it yet, I was gonna order two of that and try it.

I think SCS, is that gonna be, you said GE, I don't think it's GE, I think SCS is the brand, right?

SCS 1000?

Well, I mean, I'm just saying, this is how it's labeled, and there's clearly a big GE.

Yeah, I mean, it says GE.

I didn't look it up, though.

You looked it up?

Yeah, it's a green tube, yeah, it's green in color with a big GE logo on it.

Well, it sounds like it's a GE product, Jon.

Yeah, I think it's possible that it's GE.

I should have looked for it, I said anything.

Yeah, SCS 1000, Contractor Silicone Sealant.

So, I'm just saying, anybody struggling to get-

Anybody CSS instead of SCS?

Contractor Silicone Sealant, why is it SCS?

Don't know.

Stupid.

Yeah.

They didn't think that through.

Stupid.

Their acronym is not correct.

Oh, they messed up after purchasing 1 million tubes.

They just kept the name, like, oh, let's go with it.

When I was a Director of sales, I was a Director of sales at Marriott when I was 20 years old, 20 years old, and we opened up a new hotel in downtown Phoenix.

It was my job to handle the grand opening for this hotel, right?

And so I sent out invites and I ran it up the chain.

I ran it to the owner of the hotel because all Marriott's are franchise.

I ran to the owner of the hotel.

I ran it to Marriott corporate and I sent the invite that I was going to send out.

Great, great, great, great, great.

I sent it out to like a thousand people in Phoenix, to all these, you know, city officials and business people, whatever.

And I started getting calls.

Hey, I got your invite for the grand opening.

When is it?

What do you mean?

It's not on the, it's on the invite you sent me.

And I looked, sure enough, dude, I left the date and the time off the invite.

The most important thing about an invite wasn't on there.

I looked at it, the owner looked at it, Marriott looked at it, nobody noticed.

Idiots.

Idiots.

Looked at it too many times.

I know.

The basic of an invite.

When and where.

I left it off.

So anyways, but yeah.

Yeah, there's that.

There's something else that's going to hit.

Oh, I was talking about tooling silicone.

I have, they're called glazing spatulas.

Glazing spatula.

And they're for guys that do window glazers.

And it's a series of these stainless steel, let's call them popsicle sticks, but there are various radiuses.

And they get pretty big, maybe like an inch across.

So it's a pretty big radius.

But if you don't want to spend 150 bucks on those, on Amazon, look up cake decorating tools.

And they have these-

That's what I was going to say, yeah, cake.

First of all, don't try to steal my thunder.

I'm the one saying it.

So don't try to sweep in.

Don't try to sweep in at the moment of payoff.

The moment of payoff when I'm giving somebody this golden tip, you're like, yeah, I was going to say that.

No, you weren't.

If you were going to say, you should have said it.

But you didn't say it.

Now, I'm going to say it.

Do it.

Beautiful cake decorating tools.

So get on Amazon.

Cake decorating tools, they're like $10, $12.

So you don't need to spend $150.

It's pretty much the same thing.

The ones I have, they are a little bit different.

The cake decorating tools are just a stamped piece of steel.

It's flat.

The glazing spatulas are ground on one side to taper, so they have flex to them, like a controlled flex.

But who cares?

And we're not really...

It's not really important to us.

We just need the radius.

You just need something to tool to form with.

That's what we're looking for.

So yeah, cake decorating tools, as I was saying and Jon was not saying.

Yeah.

Gazing, gazing.

Gazing, what?

Yeah.

Just go with it, man.

Just go with it.

Gazing tools.

There you go.

That's how I put it in there.

Here we go.

Or streamline your caulk.

Albion engineering.

You can streamline your caulk spatula.

Are you on Amazon reading right now?

Oh, God.

You got to get off Amazon.

I put it.

That's I just I just put it in there.

I want to streamline my caulk and it's Albion engineering.

$57.

Well, there's way cheaper ones.

There's a way cheaper ones.

All right.

Okay.

So there's that.

We're going to do Seth Taylor fibers real quick.

That's my list.

Sure.

Well, with that one, man, all I was going to say is for anybody listening, good on you.

I've had some.

So it's great to see Seth.

I think he posted it, what, yesterday or his post today or something like that.

But I've had several conversations over the last few days with various artisans.

I'm going to say testing and trying things on their own.

And this is what I think is amazing, is when you, you know, maybe they heard it from us, maybe they didn't.

I don't know.

But so you think Seth specifically, I don't know if he just had a large stock of whatever, but he had been using a certain fiber with MakerMix.

And although his success in what he is doing went up dramatically, it didn't go up as far as maybe it could have.

And so recently, he switched over fibers from the, you know, NEG, Nippon, kind of the ones that we discourage.

And when I say discourage, this is not, I'm not knocking anybody's fibers, but what we have definitely found in SCC casting techniques or self-consolidated concrete where you mix it up pretty flowable, you pour it into a mold, that the versions of the Owens Corning fiber, which is that they're a much stiffer fiber, there's an 82, a 135 Tex, it just has to do with the size of the fibers of the bundle size.

They flow so much better.

And I'm going to say they're instrumental in if a person wants to do a self-consolidating concrete cast, maybe it's a sink or a top or whatever it might be, it doesn't matter if it's a flat rectangle or a vessel sink, you will get much better results using these versions of fibers than you will with the, as we refer to them as the fibers that are a little more feather-like, right?

They bend a little more and they're much softer, which I think would probably be excellent and continue for hand layups and these kinds of things, but not for casting techniques.

So really, what I was going to say, so he switched over, he saw absolutely dramatic changes in those fibers.

So good on you for moving your experience level to a new, you know, to a new high.

I think that's great.

And I had something similar with somebody who was doing sealer here the other day.

He called me up and he actually, I'm not going to say he had a problem, but one of the things he saw is after sealing a piece, he put some water on it and the water left there long enough.

I'm going to say left a, I hate to refer to as a surface scar, but in the right light, you could look across the sheen and you could see where that, whatever half dollar size water test that he did.

And he's like, in fact, he even gave me the answer and I'm like, just when I was ready to spit it out, like, oh dude, I know what you did.

He's like, but Jon, this is what I did.

I made a sample, I tested it, and I know, I've heard guys are using the torch and they lock the final application of sealer, which he personally has shied away from based on past experience, past information.

And in this case, he followed through the steps.

He did one with and one without.

And yeah, so when he ran the torch after his last application, zero issues, which once again, I'll almost say is awesome to you because now you move to a new level based on your experience information rather than, you know, falling back on information that may have been told to you that you never understood.

So that's what I was going to say.

What's your thoughts?

Oh, I don't know.

Wade Bloom was calling me and I was texting him back saying we're doing a podcast.

Oh, man, I tweaked my back last night.

Yawning of all things, dude.

I yawned and stretched and tweaked my back.

That's the age I'm at now.

It's not lifting a 200 pound sink or something.

Oh, here it is.

Oh, dude, okay.

So let me see.

Let me read his so timely.

Wade Bloom.

If you don't know Wade, Wade's amazing.

He's doing awesome Ramcrete stuff.

Yeah.

He's doing awesome stuff in general.

He probably thought they were simple, but those animals that he did for that, I don't know if it was an art show.

No, it was for a playground.

It was an artist there.

He's in Austin, Texas.

It was a local artist that came up with these really cool animal designs for the playground.

But Wade was having a hard time finding somebody to hotwire cut those profiles out of foam.

And he called me and it turned out I'd found a company here in Wichita.

And he ended up driving up here to pick him up.

It was so cheap to have him cut here versus where he was going to get him cut at.

That he made the drive up to pick him up in his trailer.

But so here's his text.

Different recommendations for silicone other than the GE garbage at Home Depot.

I can't seem to find the SCS 1000 anywhere other than Ordinant.

I kind of need something sooner than that.

Any thoughts?

That's what he said.

What are the chances he would text me that when we're doing this podcast?

I don't have any thoughts.

You're going to have to order it, you know, Amazon.

Pay for the expedited shipping or it's going to get there in two days.

Or you risk it.

I mean, there's a thought then per what I just said.

Same, I didn't have any silicone at all for what we were doing.

So I'm like, whatever.

My buddy Billy was with me, so we just swung by the hardware still, whatever.

There it is.

Picked it up.

I'll be honest with you, due to the fact that this wasn't going to be for a finished mold, it was literally just to fill some spots because it was an upright cast, just to fill some spots.

I didn't want concrete to fall down in.

I figured, no brainer, I don't care.

I just picked it up, 100% silicone.

It was a white tube.

It had red label on it.

Whatever.

Didn't pay attention.

Squirted it all in.

We're done.

awesome.

We came back the next day and I'm like, what?

It was still a gooey, nasty mess.

And that's when I looked at the tube that I picked up and I'm like, oh my God, why is this even on the shelves?

This is just junk.

Yeah.

And it's called Supreme, which is hilarious.

Like it's supposed to be the better version of the advanced, but it's horrible.

It's absolutely horrible.

So I wasn't really listening, Jon, to what you said, but I wrote down Sealer because I wanted to cover the importance of how to properly apply ICT.

And I'm thinking of Gabriel having some issues recently and had to do with applying way too much heat.

And this is something, we all do this.

We all do this.

You hear that something is good.

And in our human brains, we think if that's good, more is better.

If heat is good, let me cook this thing.

Let me just crank it up to 100, right?

I did this.

Everybody's done this.

We've all done this with curing.

We're curing concrete so hot that we were melting the plastic sink forms inside of it.

Yeah, I remember that.

Yeah.

We were getting it so dang hot because we thought, well, if a little bit of hot is good, a lot hot is better, you know?

So we just went bananas with it.

Same thing with the sealer.

And you'll see videos.

And again, I used to do this.

I remember when it was like this.

When you're applying the ICT and it's just steaming off the surface, you don't want to see that.

I saw a video recently of somebody doing that.

And that's what I used to have happen to me.

2012 or so, because I was just cooking it.

I was cooking it.

So do you want to go through the proper process and make it as simple as you can, because we're going to have people new to the Concrete who haven't even used ICT.

But make it as simple as possible, Jon.

Don't overcomplicate it of how to properly apply ICT.

And when I say probably apply, don't look at videos from three or four years ago, because the chemistry has changed.

The chemistry has advanced.

And the things we were doing three or four years ago, you don't really want to do it today.

It's changed.

So now it's more about dwell time.

So you want to talk about it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, again, I can write it pretty simply.

Pretty simply, cooler concrete, 70 to 75 degrees.

What most of us have and will continue to find extremely successful is take, we call them roofing torches.

I think they're also used for weeds or whatever the case may be.

I like the ones that are done for it.

Chase the vapor across the raw concrete.

Don't spend a lot of time doing it.

Just just it's if you've ever done it, the visual thing is instant.

You'll see what happens.

Just chase the vapor.

You'll watch the concrete.

What appears like it's drying out and don't spend a lot of time doing it.

Don't take your concrete from 50 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit or 10 degrees Celsius to 50 degrees Celsius.

That's not what you're trying to do.

What you're just going to do is chase the vapor.

Okay, boom.

Hold on, Jon.

You see, you're already diving into the deep end.

Let's pretend this is a fundamentals class.

I thought I was.

We got all these people's stars in their eyes.

They got Christmas in their eyes, Jon.

They're excited.

Sun-charted territory.

They don't know anything about concrete.

They're just like, I'm here to learn, I'm a sponge, I'm here to absorb.

Tell me, okay, so I would say, let's start at the beginning.

First step.

What is...

Beginning would be an understanding of the basic philosophy of this kind of ceiling technology.

Exactly.

I was going to say, what are we trying to achieve with this?

Yeah.

So the best way to achieve the best performance with this kind of technology is you figure out a way, and we have ways that we've shown, you figure out a way to optimize the way the liquid that we're calling a sealer, how does that liquid soak into the concrete?

In life, doesn't matter what we're talking about, in the perfect world, if you had, let's say, whatever we're talking, here we're talking a piece of concrete.

If we could literally put enough liquid on top of that and leave that liquid on long enough, eventually, it's going to soak into the concrete.

That's what we're trying to do, except now we're trying to do it under the constraints of, we can't put two inches of liquid and wait long enough for that two inches to soak in.

So, instead, we do these little magic trickery techniques that increases the ability to solve that issue, and the issue goes back to, what does this technology want to do?

It wants to soak into the concrete.

It doesn't want to just sit on top of the concrete.

It wants to soak into the concrete.

So, how do you do that?

Well, number one, we're all, most of us are sealing concrete, unless you're doing a re-seal project of some sort, that's, you know, days old.

Meaning, it's like legitimately probably less than a week, sometimes as many as just a few days, before this material was a bucket of water, a bucket of cement, a bucket of sands, right?

Or a bag of blended dry materials and some amount of water.

Meaning, so it's, think of it like a sponge.

It's gonna, a sponge just still has some amount of moisture in it.

So the first thing we want to do is trick that concrete.

So we take something like a torch, and we run it over the raw concrete, what we refer to as chasing the vapor.

Okay?

It's not about warming up the concrete.

It's none of these things.

Just chase the vapor.

And the concrete at this time, you know, let's think of it as ambient temperature, 65 to maybe 75 degrees, somewhere in that zone, okay?

We first apply a diluted application of sealer.

Most of us are doing like a one-part sealer, or three parts water.

You put it in a pump up spray bottle.

To me, that's the best way of doing it.

Put it in a pump up spray bottle, specifically the Solo 418s.

If anybody, you get them off Amazon.

If anybody's used these, they've got a great little adjustable tip on them that points down.

They're awesome.

So that's what I remember.

The maker is Solo, and the number is 418s.

They're, I don't know, quart and a half size, so they're perfect size.

And you douse the surface, like literally, you know, soak the surface with this material, a damp microfiber roller on bigger pieces.

I like the nine inch on the smaller pieces.

I use the little six inch, and you just use that roller to even it out.

That's the simplest method I can tell.

Don't spend 10 minutes rolling, just simply soak the surface and use that roller to even it out.

The best way to describe it when I tell people that I'm doing this is, I do it like I don't care.

Like legitimately, I don't care.

The only thing I don't want left on the surface is puddles, right?

So you're using the sprayer to the best of your ability, soak it and spray it, you use the roller, even it out, you step back, you walk away.

In other words, you don't keep, yeah, don't keep playing with it.

Yeah, you don't roll it till it's dry.

You roll it when it's wet, and you walk away when it's all evenly wet, and you let it absorb in as it wants to.

Right.

In the perfect world, at the right temperatures and everything, you know, that first application is in my shop, or even like I just did this cast-in-place job, it took a good 10 to 15 minutes to actually dry.

That's just what it is at those temperatures with that amount of material that I put on it.

Okay.

Now, I come back after that, I take my torch again, and again, I just chase it.

Don't spend time.

I'm not trying to heat the concrete or anything.

I just chase it.

And we've talked about that, but I'll stay away from the chemistry for why you're doing.

But what we haven't talked about is the torch.

So we keep saying a torch, but, you know, in a lot of places, that's a flashlight.

They call it a flashlight, a torch.

We're talking about a roofing torch, propane roofing torch, and they have a little detail one, they have a little small one, and they have a bigger one.

I use the bigger one, but I'm really fast with it across the surface.

Jon likes the smaller one because it has more control and it doesn't put out as much heat, but it's a little propane roofing torch is what we're talking about.

Right.

I was actually going to...

Is it Red Dragon is the brand you like?

Yeah.

They're not coming up as fast as they would.

Who cares?

So you did the first step where you did the soak, and now you're going to torch it.

Just to give anybody the idea, these are like 20,000 BTU, 50,000 BTU torches is what we're talking about, propane torches.

Very simple to use.

I use them in place all the time.

I don't worry about...

They don't burn cabinets.

They don't destroy stuff.

They're very easy to control.

Yeah.

And when we say chase the vapor, what does that even mean?

I know what it means because I've done it, but if you've never done it before, what does that mean when you say chase the vapor?

Well, it's hard to describe if you've never done it.

It becomes instantly recognizable when you see it.

So the moment you drop that torch flame onto the surface of the concrete, what you're going to see is or visually what looks like is under the flame, the concrete dries, gets a little more opaque in color, and the edge of your flame is it looks dark.

And if anybody's ever seen the heat radiation off the top of your car on a summer day, and you look at it, you see the way the light dances through the radiant heat coming off, that's what we're calling the vapor.

So you see that happen, and as you move the torch across the surface, you see the darkening, that what appears darkening go away, you see the area under the torch dry out, but you also see this like little radiance of heat and vapor coming off the surface.

So that's what we call chase the vapor.

You just chase that darkening around, you see that radiant heat come off the surface, and boom, you're done.

Yeah, for me, I'm just really, yeah.

For me, it's a second I hear the torch, I can see where the torch is hitting it because it's drying it, and it just looks like it's just drying it.

That's the way those are describing it.

I just go really quick across the surface and just see as the torch is going, where it's dried, you know?

And it's just getting the vapor out of the surface.

Open up the pores a little bit, and it's getting the vapor out of the surface for the next coat that then come in and will absorb in.

But the mistake I think people make is based on the old information of heating the concrete up, is they see the torch not for that, but they see it as, let me get the concrete hot.

And the point of the torch is not for that per se.

It'll slowly warm up over time with each application.

But that's not the intent of the torch.

That's not what we're trying to do.

So anyway, so the people that are using for that purpose, that's where we're getting off track.

I've explained that to a few other people recently.

And then it makes sense.

And they're, let's say, the results completely changed.

So, where do we go?

We're step two now.

Yeah, so again, number one, chase the vapor with raw concrete.

Number two, sloppily apply, just don't leave puddles.

You're a three-to-one application, three parts water, one part sealer.

Be quite robust with it.

In other words, don't roll it thin.

Leave it on there, let it dwell, let it soak in.

And then I run my torch again, again, very quickly over the surface and chase in the vapor again.

And then I typically apply two applications, you know, back to back with a torch in between of two parts water, one part sealer.

Again, pump up spray bottle, this Solo 418.

Spray the surface, roll it with a nine-inch roller.

Microfiber roller, by the way.

I've definitely found that the 3-8 snap microfiber roller seems to work the easiest, the quickest and the best.

So that's what I use.

Two of those, again, torch in between.

Then I'll move to a one-part sealer, one-part water, following the same protocol, a light torch, apply with the roller, spraying with the Solo 418.

You know, and all of these done back to back, I'm gonna call it almost a one, two, to two.

So one, three, to one, two, to one.

And although I'm giving numbers, I'm gonna tell everybody, don't get caught up in the numbers, and I'll explain that here in a minute.

But I'm just gonna tell you, this is what I find to hit my visual markers, because that's another part of this.

At this point, when I get up into my one-part waters, one-part sealer, after I run the torch, I wipe the surfaces down with typical household vinegar.

Keep it in a little bucket next to me with a rag in it, I wring the rag out, I wipe the surface down.

And then I hit my next applications.

A caveat to that, that I've done for some people who then thought they need to soak the surface with the vinegar, and that's not what you're doing, is then just hit the torch one more time, and make absolutely sure you don't have vinegar vapor sitting on the surface before you apply your next application.

And then I finish with typically one or two very thin, but more like mist and a pull trigger sprayer with the 100 percent.

And now I'm just using the roller to even that out.

So that's my protocol.

That's what I stand behind.

Time and time again, I'm going to say in testing, and this is something I was just talking to Phil Courtney about.

I'm as human as anybody else.

And when I just gave that like, oh, one of this, two to that, two to that, it's like, wow, that seems pretty daunting.

Even though I just sealed four, you know, three vanities and a hearth in my shop on Monday, and it took me an hour and a half total to run through all those steps on all those pieces.

Being human, I think, oh man, let me, I wanna skip this one or skip that one.

I can tell you, in all my testing, any time I've skipped a step, meaning I went from three to one to one to ones and just skipped everything in between, I never got the same resistances, never.

Something is always sacrificed in that, which goes back to the basic philosophy is, as soon as I got past not letting it soak into the concrete, yeah, I've lost something in the reactive value of the sealer.

That's just what it is.

So with that, and I know I ran through that pretty quickly, there's a couple of caveats that some people who got into their own, whatever their own routine that I'm going to say to avoid.

Number one, don't heat up the concrete to so that the concrete, meaning, and I'm talking about the core of the concrete, not the surface of the concrete, because as soon as you touch the torch, the surface of the concrete, it might bounce up to 100 something degrees.

But then you step back for a moment and let the concrete find its ambient temperature, which should be about room temperature.

As you progress through the applications and kissing with a torch through the applications, typically the final temperature of my concrete is right around 80, 85, maybe 90 degrees, somewhere in that zone.

But the concrete slowly rose up to that temperature through all the application process.

I don't bring it up to that temperature to begin with.

I start at about 70, 75 degrees.

Yeah.

So that's one of the mistakes I would say some people would make is, and I understand why they think they're doing it, back to the whole idea of opening your pore structure and, you know, concrete moves and temperature.

Here's the problem with that is with this kind of technology and raw concrete, that hot list, now let's call that the hot temperature.

Literally when the sealer hits contact with that hot concrete, you're going to have some instant reactions happening that can compromise further reactions.

And even though you might see the concrete, well, it looks like it's darkening, Jon, and then I spend another five minutes working it around.

Well, what happens though is to some degree, you've created this instant reaction, let's say, that impedes everything from that point on.

It's just the way it is.

Chemistry is about heat.

What do you do?

Use Bunsen burners to warm things up and et cetera, et cetera.

So if you start at a lower temperature, all of the reactions are going to be steadier.

does that make sense?

They'll follow their path much easier, and you won't have any hard, fast reactions.

And that's really what you want.

So that would be one.

Let it move your way through.

And then the other one would be always run your torch after your final application.

Lock that one in.

And it goes to the name.

This is a reactive technology.

So when you put that last application on, and you're like, boom, hey, man, this looks brilliant.

It looks fantastic.

Well, just realize that it's sitting there still somewhat dormant, and anything that comes in contact with it afterwards and sits there, that sealer is going to react with.

And the example I would use is this, per Phil Courtney.

So he did one where he doesn't run the torch, and he leave water on it.

Let's call it like a, I don't know, five minute, 10 minute, 20 minute water test.

And you go, hey, look, I got no vapor moving through the system.

I've done it right.

And then you wipe that water off and you go, oh man, but you know, at the right angle, it looks, I see this almost opaque spot where that water was.

And that's where the sealer, it could be chlorine flooring, you know, dust in the air that came into the water, whatever.

But if you run the torch after that final application, you will prevent that from happening.

And I think somebody else, I don't know who, used it like they thought the water had etched the surface of the sealer.

And it was Josh Bradshaw hit me on one.

Same thing, shoot me.

Jon, what do you think's happening?

I'm like, oh, well, that's obvious, man.

You just didn't run your torch afterwards.

He's like, oh, you're right, I totally forgot.

And then he cleaned up the spot, he ran the torch, and you know, boom, everything was solved.

So those would be a couple small ones just for anybody out there.

Don't overheat your concrete to begin with.

You're not doing yourself any favors whatsoever.

And always make sure to run that torch afterwards.

And with that, I guess I just want to be aware of the everything we're talking about right now is essentially about, you know, using the magic of tricking this technology to turn it quicker.

Because under the same premise, if a person doesn't do the torch afterwards, because I'm waiting for someone to say, oh man, well, then what happens?

Well, it's just time, you know?

Now it's going to be 7 to 10 days before someone can leave wet items on that surface without leaving the possibility of a reaction on that surface.

Well, that's not what we want to happen.

As the example I just did at this Cast in Place project is we finished sealing on a Friday.

I sealed this thing on a Friday in place.

Saturday morning, plumbers were installing faucets.

So, you know, not just, and I literally stopped by to talk to the client, his name is Craig.

And the surface of his countertops were covered in all the tools, lunch boxes and anything else that the plumbers were using while installing both the faucets and the sink.

Of course it was.

And again, it became their workbench, I guess is what I'm saying.

I get it.

Their work is the only thing that's important.

Everything else is just there for them to use to do what they're doing.

Sure.

And again, I get it.

And anybody who's going to balk at it, don't, because whether we're talking about plumbers or electricians.

Drywall guys, tile guys.

It's not that people are trying to be abusive.

It's just, they're just doing their work.

I get it.

They don't care about other people's work.

I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit touchy about it, because I've had so many pieces ruined over the years by trades who had no respect for the work of other people.

Yeah, it happens.

It happens.

But where I'm going with it is, we have the knowledge and the tools to help us navigate the obvious.

Again, you're just, you're not going to change it.

It is what it is.

And in this case, I'm specifically talking about my Cast In Place Project because, look, there's no way of me holding on for this for three days in my shop.

You know what I mean?

There it is.

I sealed it, it's done, and it's at the mercy of whatever the moment I, in this case, slide the, slide the close of the door behind me on the way out.

It is what it is.

Had I not showed up on Saturday, quite frankly, to talk to the homeowner about the rest of the pieces that we were doing, I wouldn't even know those people, anybody was there, unless I got the call to say, hey, you know, what are these spots?

Or hey, why did this happen?

Or da da da da.

And then my answer is going to be like, well, I noticed that the faucet's in, you know, I noticed that the sink's been installed.

Is it possible that the plumbers had left this or that?

Or, you know, whatever the case may be.

But at that point, you know, it's in my opinion, it's still, now you're repairing something that probably didn't need to be repaired anyway.

Had you taken these other steps as a preventive, knowing full well these kind of things were most likely going to happen.

Well, yes and no.

I told a story before, but I did a project in Tempe at a commercial building where we installed these floating sinks.

I don't know, like four or five ramp sinks.

And they were in there for a month.

And I get a call from the general contractor.

Hey, man, you need to get down here and take a look.

Your sinks are spotted.

I don't know what's going on, you know?

Okay.

I go down there.

And there's these perfect equilateral triangles all over the surface of the concrete.

He's like, what are these spots?

And I pick up one of the tiles because the guys were tiling.

I pick up one of the tiles that were like in a box and I put it on the spot and it's a perfect match, right?

I was like, is it possible the tile guy just put tile in here and left it?

Because it had also been like a holiday weekend after he called me.

It had been like a four or five day break that people had taken off.

And what the tile guy had done is he just set tile over the surface with the unglazed ceramic side down against the concrete and it sucked moisture out.

Dude, this isn't a me problem.

I told you to protect the surface.

I told you not to let trades do this.

This is, I mean, you got to put your foot down at some point.

Just say, like, don't call me with...

And especially, it was so funny when I picked up the tile of the box and I put it and it was, like, an exact outline match, you know, like, do we need to play this game?

Like, this is a concrete issue.

Oh, we've all ran into that over the years.

I can tell all my horror, everything from I walked around and picked up a...

I guess they had cleaners come through.

And again, this is right after the vanities were installed back when we were doing all the installs.

And I'm like, oh, that's a really odd shape.

And they're like, yeah, so, I mean, what did you guys do?

And then right over there was still like a Windex bottle.

I set it right on there and I'm like, looks like that was left there.

That's not me, man.

I didn't bring this in.

Oh, the cleaning light.

But still at that point, okay, fine.

We figured out what it was.

Okay.

Well, that doesn't change.

They're still looking at you like, can you fix it?

You know what I mean?

Don't blame me for it, I guess.

When the tone is you did something wrong, or there's something faulty with your product, it changes from let's work together to fix this to a blame game.

And I don't like playing the blame game.

True.

But see, this is what I was just talking about, whether we're talking to Seth Taylor in this, because I mentioned Phil Courtney.

It was such, I don't know how to describe it, man, but it's just a great feeling as I'm talking to Phil, and he's walking me through these things that he did, right?

Rather than just, let's say wholeheartedly, like, you know, oh, well, Jon said this, so this is what I did.

No, so he did it, and he followed me through, and it was a great conversation because he called me, like, how would I describe it?

Like, I'm the one with the problem, and he was solving it.

You know what I mean?

So he was giving me the answers, and it was just great, and you could hear the tone in his voice, like, well, I hadn't seen that before, and you know I hadn't really looked at this, and I hadn't tested it, and oh, man, now it's obvious.

And you could just see or listen to his voice, and as we keep saying, experience matters, and it really does.

And so with Seth and the fibers, experience matters.

And it's great to see and be a part of this where other people are taking the reins, and now you feel like you're being schooled.

I loved it.

Yeah.

Well, now he understands.

I mean, that's the thing is when you see it firsthand, you see the difference.

You're not just taking our word for it.

And we say, hey, the fibers of Buddy rhodes product cells, the NG fibers, they're great for some things, but for SEC, they're horrible.

That feather like flat fiber just goes like crazy.

I mean, we've all experienced it.

And so don't use those if you're doing SEC.

Use the Owens Corning HD, which I want to also say Joe bates at SC Fabrication is now selling those.

So if you're looking for a source to buy the Owens Corning HD fibers, hit up Joe bates, Joe at SC Sam charles, SC Fab, FAB, napa.com.

So Joe@scfabnapa.com

Joe bates, SC Fabrication is his company.

He will sell you, happily sell you, the correct fibers, the ones that, I'm gonna say correct, the ones that are better suited for what we're doing.

Yeah, for what we're doing with self-consolidating concrete casting.

Something else I failed to mention earlier when I was talking about the workshops is the last podcast we did, we talked about potentially doing a pinnacle and a hoedown at Dusty Baker's Place in the spring.

And I had a conversation with Dusty, and I guess I misunderstood his availability to do something like that.

I thought he was available.

But after further talk, and he's like, dude, I just can't commit that amount of time to doing it, which I get, I understand.

So I had a few people hit me up that wanted to register, and I'm like, hey, we're not doing it.

We're not gonna do that class.

So one of them was wanting to specifically do Rammcrete.

So that's another reason why I have the Rammcrete class now.

So if you were gonna hold powder and come to that class, that class is not gonna happen now.

So the two classes we have on the website right now are two current classes.

We're talking to Joe, doing something on Joe's place in the spring, but we haven't set any dates yet.

awesome.

Yeah.

So just wanted to-

Anything else on the list?

No, I think that's it.

You know, we have been doing the things we love to wrap up the podcast each week.

We haven't done that in a minute.

Is there anything that you love, Jon Schuler, that you want to talk about?

Sure.

I'll throw something out there.

People who don't know this about me is I don't sleep much.

I've been an insomniac since I was a kid.

Why?

Who knows?

Probably my incredible attractiveness.

So if anybody's interested, there's a product called-

Hey, man, when you're pretty, you stay up.

The whole world has to see it.

There's a product called Moon Brew, M-O-O-N-B-R-E-W, with the idea that you drink it about an hour, hour and a half before you go to bed.

It's got magnesium and stuff in it.

So again, this isn't like a sleeping aid kind of thing.

But I will tell you, it's helped me dramatically.

So if anybody, I would jokingly tell people, I basically nap at night.

That's all I've ever done.

And since I've been using this stuff for about the last six weeks or so, now I'm only probably getting up two or three times a night, which is huge for me.

So yeah, that would be something, if anybody interested, called Moon Brew.

And yeah, I'm digging it.

It's it's it's working great for me.

Nice.

Well, I would say this isn't a favorite thing, but it's something that I figured out over the last few weeks of casting this never ending Groundhog Day of a tile project that, by the way, yesterday was my last cast for it.

I had 15 days of casting.

So that's a ton of casting, like, you know, batching, and just all of it, 15 times.

But anyways, this was the last day.

Today, I'm going to be processing the tile and sealing them this afternoon, and then tomorrow I'll pack them up, and then it's going to ship, and I can't wait.

That being said, I've cleaned these molds now 15 times.

these are plastic molds.

these are molds that I make, and I'll be selling molds again here soon.

I haven't had time to put towards it, but I hope to shift gears back to making molds again.

But one thing about plastic molds is they're kind of a pain and a butt to clean sometimes.

I always use a scotch spry to get them wet and take a scotch spry and I'm gonna scrub the sides of these tile molds, it's labor intensive and it takes time.

Then you get like a little sharp scratch all and I get in the corners to break out any little bits of concrete that have stuck in the corner, like that little sharp edge.

So these are the things that kind of drive me nuts about tile.

But I started taking my diluted muritic acid that's in a pump up sprayer that I use on acid etching, because I acid etch all these tiles, because I'm neurotic.

And I started spraying the tile molds, just spray them down, and put another one on top, spray it, put another one on top, spray it, put another one on top, and just push them off to the side and let them set.

This is diluted, probably five parts water, one part acid.

Let them set for 20, 30 minutes.

Then I bring them back over to the sink and I rinse them out with water.

Dude, they look brand new every time.

For all these years, I've been sitting there hand scrubbing with the Scotch-Brite and the Scratch-All and doing all this crap.

I could have just sprayed them with the diluted and erratic acid, let them set for 20, 30 minutes, rinse them off.

They look brand spanking new, like brand new, because the plastic is, you know, acid proof.

So it's, why I didn't think of that?

I don't know.

I don't know why I never considered that, but it's the easiest way to clean the forums.

It takes all of, you know, a couple of minutes to rinse them out.

And then I just set them up to dry and they dry and then spray my release.

Bada bing, bada boom, they're perfect.

All right on.

So a little lesson I've learned over the last few weeks.

So that's that.

All right, Jon.

Well, this has been a good podcast.

Let's do it again next week.

All right.

Sounds good.

Adios, amigo.

Adios.