DIY decorative concrete

[Rossluck]

SWMBO and I have just finished applying 20 SQ metres of decorative concrete. We did so to hide a botched concrete job done by a neighbour (good bloke, bad concretor) . It came out beautifully.

The point is, if you have some suspect or tired concrete around your home that you need to repair, try spraying on resurfacing compound. It's not that expensive and you don't have to use the stencils (we didn't). It cost us $60.00 for a hopper gun from Trade Tools, (you obviously need a fairly good compressor), and $380 for the materials.

This is made up of of a 20 litre drum of Polymer (which is used in much the same way you use bondcrete, apply a mixture to the bare concrete, and then use it to mix with the sand/cement spray on stuff), three 20 KG bags of the coloured sand/cement mix, and 20 litres of high quality sealer.

The process itself is pretty painless:

acid wash the concrete (20:1)
Mask for overspray
roll or mop on the polymer solution
Mix and spray on the coloured cement solution (we did three coats)
When it's dry roll on the sealer (two coats)

We only used half of the polymer solution and a two thirds of the sealer. We plan to go around our whole house with it.

[John99]

hi Rossluck

do you have some pictures ? :confused:

[Rossluck]

I'll try, John. Our digital camera is a cranky critter. Basically, all we did was to use the procedure they use for stencilcrete but without the stencil.

[Spittin Chips]

Have an old crazy cracked driveway myself...Cant blame the neighbour for this one...just a DIY concreting pioneer from the 1930's who slowly filled in the entire yard over a 50 year period...and he wasnt Italian or Greek! Will it stand up to vehicular traffic? Would love to see photos also!

[colincarpenter]

hi ross
which trade tools did you get the gun from i live at upper coomera
thanks col

[hprot]

Hi all, if you are looking for a great, free site on DIY concrete resufracing try concretedecorativeresurfacing . weebly.com It offers a fully guide on the topic. Hope this is some help.