Walls in the patio bar area were finished to look like Venetian plaster with cementitious grout Spray Texture from Cem Tec, A.W. Cook Cement Products, Hoschton, Ga. The knockdown finish was chemically stained with a blend of two colors plus stain mule gel to keep the stain from dripping. It was hand sponged and ragged onto the wall for a mottled look.
The concrete countertops required careful forming with good support for the 4-inch cantilever and the removal of 18 inches of support after the concrete was set. Reedy did not want customers to see wood underneath the bar. The countertops created onsite were reinforced with 4x4 gauge wire mesh. Jackson Concrete used a pea stone mix with a low water-cement ratio to minimize cracking for the countertop's 2-inch thickness and 3-inch thickness at the cantilevered portion. The light tan colored concrete was vibrated and consolidated to avoid bugholes. Forms were removed early and the vertical edge aggressively rubbed with trowels and edging tools to create a crisp corner. The joints have flexible epoxy caulk between sections to allow room for movement. An FDA topcoat epoxy coated the concrete bar.
ASET (Automotive Spraying Equipment Technology)Salt Lake City, Utah
We know art because we work with the best airbrush painters in the country,” says Sherri Candland, CFO, ASET, Salt Lake City. “This floor is a work of art without question.” Neil Ohmie, co-owner with Erick Nay of Ky-Kan Coatings, Riverton, Utah, installed the floor that Candland describes as unorthodox. Candland originally was looking for a single color to stain the concrete floor. The floor evolved into an artwork with embedded artist's work and airbrushed flames on the floor.
There was no mastic on the 3000-square-foot floor, but the floor had been sealed with several different coatings, leaving it greasy, oily, and peeling. It also had a number of cracks. The larger cracks were filled with injectable epoxies and then the oil was removed. The floor was diamond ground to open the concrete for a better mechanical bond, to blend the epoxy fill, and to remove coatings for a clean surface. A moisture test with plastic taped to the slab determined there was no significant water vapor transmission. An application of acetone dye in walnut and saddle brown penetrated the pores of the entire floor. This left an open surface for the artwork application and had the look of chemical stain.
“Artwork was hanging on the walls everywhere such as tribal symbols and flames,” says Ohmie. “I wanted to find a way to create similar symbols on the floor and include the artists' work from ASET's Air Affair show last year.” Candland supplied a disk with the artists' works and Ohmie contracted with a graphics company to convert the photo images to vinyl. The company found a way to create a spray of flames in the same manner as an artist uses an airbrush.
Ohmie sketched the layout of the flames on the floor with a pencil and used shaped plastic foam as a freehand template to create the rounded inside base of the flame. He then applied mars red, orange, yellow, and white color layers of water-based stain from Smith Paint, Harrisburgh, Penn., using an automotive gravity fed paint sprayer. He raised the template each time spraying a little further to shape and highlight the flame. “It was the same as airbrushing but on a large scale,” he recalls.
Afterward, a coat of 100% solid clear epoxy was applied over the entire floor as the base for the vinyl photos. The 4x6-foot photos were placed on the floor and squeegeed into the epoxy. The epoxy seeped through the tiny pinholes spaced 1/16 inch apart in the vinyl and sandwiched the work. Pithane made by PPG Industries, Pittsburgh, was pigmented to create the black borders mapped around the photos and floor, and then used in its clear form as a sealer coat to protect the entire project.
The Residence Pszczyna, Poland
Markus Sadowski, president, Admatek, Pszczyna, Poland, found Wayne Sellon at the World of Concrete 2007 where he demonstrated decorative vertical concrete work at the Artistry in Decorative Concrete demonstrations. Sellon is the co-owner of Tajmawall, Temecula, Calif., with his business partner and son Morgan Sellon. Admatek already had trained others in decorative concrete methodologies in Poland, but wanted to add vertical applications to the offering. Wayne and Morgan traveled to Poland to provide training and worked alongside Admatek on a vertical wall residential project.
“Building in Poland in communist times often meant gray and square,” says Wayne Sellon. “The desire now is for a new and colorful look. People are very receptive to decorative concrete.” The residence in Poland used Flex-C-Ment products, Picayune, Miss., and a special tool made by Wayne Sellon for the job. The residence featured clay block walls that were wrapped with 4-inch insulating foam and then rasped. The walls were covered with a fiberglass net to receive a cementitious primer. Workers applied a Flex-C-Ment primer over the netting and followed that with a scratch coat colored with lamp black integral color. The next day the same color was mixed and applied to the portion to be carved. Then the wall received a layer of Flex-C-Ment, colored red and applied with a large pool trowel to create a flat vertical surface. Texture pads applied to the red coat while still in a plastic stage of set gave the Flex-C-Ment a textured appearance. The design of the pad left the same kind of cleat marks typically found on real brick. Then using 8-foot aluminum levels, workers began at the top to place guidelines for cutting the horizontal joints.
Wayne Sellon created a tool for the workers to cut five lines at once, which increased the workers' production rate. With the horizontal lines in place, levels then were used to establish the vertical lines. Workers executed the vertical lines by moving a half brick at a time to carve every other brick for the running bond pattern. The carved away red material revealed the dark gray underneath and looked like a mortar joint. To further antique the appearance and to individualize the bricks, workers came back to hand chip edges. Then they applied Flex-Seal Supreme water-based matte finish sealer to complete the project.
Poland has a tradition of using brick for home building, however, using a concrete application over 4 inches of foam for the outside walls increases the insulation value. Wayne Sellon says that the vertical concrete application is also a less expensive and a faster system.
Wayne and Morgan spent 12 days on the project, five of which involved training individuals through a language barrier. However, through careful observation and working side by side, the techniques were taught. “The connection to the people and the experience in Poland was mind expanding,” says Wayne Sellon. He adds that seeing someone's eyes light up with understanding was the greatest reward of all.
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