Concrete Acid Stain Slab
It occurred to me that even though the slab
is only the floor of the above ground basement, there might be some time
when that room is used for a pool table, a party, craft workroom,
etc...and I might enjoy having some sort of design or floor
decoration. I suppose it was just too much of a big blank canvas
just waiting on some embellishment. |
I bought a mason's chalk line and got out
there and marked diagonal lines across the whole slab. The inexpensive
chalk line tool is a spool of string with a wind up handle on the side.
It has a case with a slide cover opening where you pour in the powdered
blue chalk that comes with it. Shown is also a roll of blue painter's
masking tape and a metal straight-edge ruler. |
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| Popping a chalk line is a two
person job. One person holds the end of the string while the other
person pulls the wound up string in the chalk filled case across the
distance to the point where you want your chalk line to end. The two of
you hold tight to each end of the string right on the surface of the
slab and one of you reaches out and lifts the tight string a few inches
in the air and lets go of it so that when it pops against the slab,
chalk dust flies off the string and leaves the long line across the
concrete. We first used a large draftsman's 30-60-90 degree
triangle to make a pencil line off one edge of the slab to show us the
angle we wanted our first chalk line to go. We decided to let the length
of the triangle determine the width of the lines we marked off. Holding
the small edge of the triangle on the first blue line, we then made a
felt-tip marker dot at the tip of the end of the triangle. We did this
in several places along our chalk line so that we could then hold our
pulled-tight chalk string so that it lined up with the dots and popped
it again to form the next line. |
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| What happened next, I didn't expect. My
plan was to get up early the next day and start the concrete acid stain
decorations. Unfortunately, at mid-day I was in a store in town and a
downpour started....I knew this would wash off our blue chalk lines in
no time so I rushed out the door and drove as fast as possible back
home, hoping to beat the movement of the clouds. I got to the slab a few
minutes before the rain reached us and had just enuf time to quickly
grab a pencil and start marking the lines w/ graphite pencil. Contrary
to what concrete subcontractors have told me in the past, pencil lines
do not wash off a bare concrete surface. If they weather away...I know
from experience, it can take years. |
I was having to work so fast to beat the
rain that I kept a sharp kitchen knife in one hand to continuously shave
off pencil wood to keep a point to draw with. Drawing a pencil line on
concrete wears the tip down rapidly. I got soaked, but got enuf of the
lines traced to be able to connect-the-dots and recreate my lines the
next day. |
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Friday, August 10th---there was an
overcast sky and what looked like storms out in the Gulf. This was a
week when there were heat warnings all across the south, so the overcast
sky helped keep the temp down and the stiff wind helped dry off the
slab. But it was still plenty HOT ! |
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| I know that in an ideal world,
I am suppose to let new concrete age and cure for a certain length of
time before any concrete acid stain color is applied. I also knew that I
did not have that time and that this is a basement floor after all....no
big deal. Once the DAC-ART blocks get stacked around the perimeter of
the slab, they will also react with the concrete acid stain and accept
the permanent color. I wanted the residue from this design to be washed
off the edges before any blocks were anywhere close by. This slab is
about 10 days old I think, but it had been exposed to some good heavy
rain during that time. I swept the water and pine needle debris off the
concrete and the wind helped dry off the slab.
I used a small foam paint roller to
apply an aqua blue color wavy stripe over my pencil lines. I tried to be
cautious and not have any drips or spills, but I did have a few
boo-boos. Concrete acid stain is a weak hydrochloric acid mix so be sure
to wear plastic goggles when messing with it, and wear old clothes. I
was working in intense heat, so my sweat kept dripping off my nose, chin
and elbows while I worked leaning over. I thought it might be
interesting to see if the chemical make-up of sweat combined with the
actual stain product would result in any new color tones. |
An accidental spill, no big deal here. In
the overall scheme of things it didn't make any difference. |
I painted the year in a place that will
later not show at all, but I figure it will help or amuse the archeologists
when they dig up the ruins a few 1000 yrs from now. |
After the wavy lines were painted on using the
Aged Copper color, I went back with Palmetto Green concrete acid stain in a
small plastic squirt bottle and made scroll-ie lines freehand between the lines.
I just made the designs up as I went along.
Sept 5, 2007
The final footing (garage) finally got re-dug and
inspected before another rain came and filled it w/ water again. Dan went to
rent a sump pump and they guy told him that he'd sell him the thing for just
about twice what the rental was, so he bought it for under $50. We will probably
need it again since the above ground basement will be totally walled around and
will collect rain until it is roofed. We pumped all the collected rain water
out, messing about in the mud, digging little traps in the low spots for the
pump to sit on a couple bricks.
The footing had to have the steel lifted
out and all the mud that had run into it during rain removed. Dan had to get an
engineer out here to do a soil compaction test (to suit the inspector). The big
steel rebar was put back in place and it was re-inspected. The surveyors came
back since the footing had gotten larger and a bit out of shape due to the rain
and re-digging. We have to make sure of both height above the mean high tide
line and the distance from our property line. Anyway--it finally got poured and
that is good, so it can't fill with water again...little tip here, since no one
can predict the rain, don't create a situation where you end up with your dug
out spots filling w/ water that has no way to escape. On the coast, pop-up
showers can happen at any time and often do every single summer afternoon for
days in a row.
We have had a bit of a slowdown while we
shopped for a crane, found one and waited while some minor repairs were made.
Then came the matter of delivery and getting insurance on it. Seems it is a
larger crane than Dan's usual insurance carrier wants to insure. I have made
lots of phone calls, my usual Insurance co, Ben Castleberry in Foley has and so
has the agent at Ebert Agency in Foley. We are waiting to hear back from several
people at the moment.
We looked all over the Internet and at the same
time, Mike Rode got crane rental prices from several agencies. Buying one was
the only thing that made sense. And, buying one that was close enuf to go
inspect and close enuf that the delivery was reasonable was a big factor. We
will want to sell this one at the end of this job, so all you potential DAC-ART
clients out there reading this.....remember to get in touch when you start crane
or boom truck shopping. If you have a tall house, one can easily spend up to
$75,000 on crane rental, so buying and selling at the end of the job is a huge,
huge savings.
I sure do want to learn how to operate that
crane. At least a little bit. We all talked about what to do if a hurricane
really was headed this way...I told them that the little subdivision house
across the street and down about a half mile came thru the last two big ones
with only a couple missing shingles, so I would drive that crane over there on
high ground and then put it to immediate use earning money after the storm. I wouldn't
haul it out of here. Everyone has debris and trees that need moving after a
storm so it would be in the right place at the right time if we did get a storm
during construction....a real moneymaker !
Yesterday, Mike our block stacker was here with
some of his men. They were measuring and marking the blocks with a big fat magic
marker on top where it will not be seen. Dan was here too and today Dan called
and said that the crane will be delivered on Friday about mid-day. The seller,
Willard Suggs or Coastal Truck and Equipment is coming back down here
mid-week to have eye surgery, then he will be back in Alexander City to have it
shipped out. I plan to be here with my camera.
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05/05/2008
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