concrete mender, MatchCrete

Repair polished concrete with Concrete Mender™

1 Comment
Stop repairing polished concrete with polyurea joint fillers. They look like plastic, do not bond well, and do not hold-up over time. Concrete polishing lets the natural beauty of stones, sand, and rock shine through.  Your repair product should as well.

cbec1b48d1534cf9a2862736e4d80d23

We took the proven Microdoweling™ properties of Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ and combined it with natural sands, aggregates and pigments to make repairs that not only look great, but perform better than epoxies and polyureas.

polished-repair450

The repair pictured above shows  Roadware Concrete Mender™ Off-white blended with plain concrete sand and a small amount of portland cement. This water-thin polyurethane is almost translucent. When we add nearly any type of dry sand or aggregate, we get a fast-curing polishable repair that blends beautifully with the surrounding concrete. Since this material is almost translucent, it resists shadowing effects due to over-banding when applied.

concrete mender

Uncontrolled Epoxy Injection

Question: How do you epoxy inject cracks in floor slabs on grade when you do not have access to the bottom of the slab? What keeps the product from running out the bottom and all over the place?Answer: We make these type of repairs all the time. The first thing to do is dump the epoxy.  It is too thick, too brittle, and takes too long to set.  Fast setting materials like 10 Minute Concrete Mender allow you to control set points deep in the crack and prevent material seepage.Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has an ultra low viscosity of 8cps and will gravity inject into the smallest of cracks. We make the repair in stages adding fine silica sand into the crack as necessary to prevent the material from running out the bottom. The product can be injected with needle tip mixers as small as 18 gauge. With careful technique and experience you can make structural repair that will restore aggregate interlock and restore the slab.

Start out by adding a small amount Concrete Mender to the prepared crack and noting where material in running beyond the slab.  Add a light dusting of silica sand or fine quartz to the crack and some more Concrete Mender. The Concrete Mender will combined with the particles of sand to form a quick setting, “mud” at the bottom of the crack. Repeat as necessary and repair the full depth of the slab.

This will be a structural repair with no ports, no pumps, and almost no down time.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ needle tip application.

 

concrete mender, Concrete Repair

Extreme Concrete Repair and Polish

How do polish a floor when your concrete is like this?

Deep cracks and surface spalling can make polishing jobs costly and difficult.  A lot of the top surface has to be removed to get to a smooth finish.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is a great choice for filling out all the cracks, spalls and holes before polishing.

 
This floor was repaired by troweling down a thin layer of Concrete Mender and sand, then ground smooth. A liquid hardener completed the restoration and the floor was polished.

 

The floor shows zero failure shown here 3 years later in 2007.  The floor continues to perform today.

 

concrete mender, Concrete Repair

Vertical Wall Repair at Club Warehouse Store

Use Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ and sand to repair damaged concrete block walls in an hour or less. Sent in by Dave Wilson at Myspec Integrated Concrete Repair Group in Georgia.  770-335-9123 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is great for repairing cracks and spalls in floors. This ultra-low 8cps viscosity material gravity flows deep into concrete and makes repairs from the bottom up.  To repair a holes in a block wall, mix the Concrete Mender™ with fine silica sand to make a trowel-able mortar.

 
 Step 1: Prepare the area and remove any loose block, paint or dirt.

Step 2: Mask off the area like shown. In a clean bucket, mix one part AB blended Concrete Mender with 3 parts sand to make a stiff mortar and trowel into the repair area. You may want to tape a plastic sheet over the repair area to hold the Concrete Mender mixture in place while it cures for 10 minutes. See bulk mixing instructions here.

Step 3: After approximately 10 minutes depending on the ambient temperature, pull the masking and blend in the repair with a rubbing brick.

Step 4: Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can be painted as soon as it cures.  Paint the repair area to match the surrounding wall.

With Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ you can do a job in less than an hour that used to take two days. No more waiting for hours or days while traditional cement based materials to set and cure.

concrete mender

Roadware Contraction Joint Repair

Why are my contraction joints spalling and what can I do to stop it?

Contraction joints (or control
joints) are joints cut into a slab shortly after pouring. The purpose of these joints is to control the cracking of the slab as it cures. Most concrete slabs shrink and sometimes curl for the first 12 months after pouring. Contraction joints allow the
slab to crack at pre-determined intervals instead of natural random cracking. Joint filler is used to protect the joints from spalling and chipping caused by traffic on the slab.
 control-joint-filler-original

As the slab cures for the first
12 months, it shrinks in size and may even curl up at the joints. The contraction joints will expand as the slab shrinks. This causes the joint filler to split apart or dis-bond from the sides of the joint leaving them exposed to traffic.

control-joint-filler-curled
When loads are rolled over the
joint. The force of the load has to transfer from the wheel, to the concrete, and to the base. If the slab is even slightly curled and the joint is expanded, the force of the load will impact on the joint causing cracking and spalling. You may even get stress cracking parallel to the joint. You can sometimes feel the uneven load transfer across the joint if you stand with one foot on either side of the joint and have someone else roll a heavy load across the joint.
control-joint-filler-curled-dynamic-load
Eventually, you get a spalled contraction joint. The joint filler has completely failed or is missing. Wheels go “thunk, thunk” every time they go over the joint. Productivity suffers, and the joint fills with dust and debris.
 control-joint-filler-curled-spalled
A popular and effective way to repair spalled contraction joints is to lock them back up with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™. Once the slab is 12 months old, the shrinkage and curling has finished. There is no longer a need for contraction joints. Now you can use Concrete Mender™ and silica sand to bond the slab back together from the base all the way up to
the top. This will stabilize the slab, restore aggregate interlock,
and allow for complete and even load transfer from the wheels all the way down to the base. Your contraction joint problems are solved.
control-joint-filler-curled-spalled-repaired
NOTES: Locking up contraction joints
is recommended for interior controlled environment applications with sound concrete and base. Exterior applications may have different results. Always test a small section
of large repair for compatibility.
 See how this repair was made by clicking here.
Diagram of a spalled contraction joint repair using 10 Minute Concrete Mender headers.
Concrete Repair, MatchCrete

Repairing Cracks in Driveways and Patios Updated

One of the most common calls we get is asking how to repair a crack in a driveway or patio.  We designed Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear with this in mind.  Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear is a UV stable clear polyurethane hybrid that makes effective repairs to most exterior concrete surfaces.  By simply leaving the repair clear, the color of the surrounding concrete shows throughout the repair.

The first step to a good looking crack repair is to rout-out or cut the repair open with a diamond blade grinder.  You only have to go about 1/4″ x 1/4″. This will create a recess for the material to rest as it soaks down further into the crack.  Skipping this step will allow the material to flow uncontrollably on the surface and will create a messy looking repair.

 

Apply cartridge mixed MatchCrete™ Clear directly to the crack. Small amounts of silica or quartz sand can be added to keep the material from flowing out the bottom of the slab.  If necessary, matching colored sand can be used to match colored concrete areas. Fill the crack to slightly below grade to prevent material from flowing on to the surface of the concrete.

After a year of service, the repair above still looks good.  Please note, MatchCrete™ Clear is not a soft expansion joint material and should not be used in joints that are designed to move.  Always give careful consideration as to why the concrete cracked in the first place and what the concrete is expected to do in the future before making repairs of this nature.

UPDATE:
September, 2013
We have a new video for driveway hairline crack repair:

concrete mender, Concrete Repair

Buy a gallon and make two. Good deal!

One gallon of Concrete Mender™ goes a long way.

 

Yield of Concrete Mender verses epoxy and pylurea.

 

One gallon of Concrete Mender™ will make 2.2 gallons of repair material when typically applied with 2 parts sand. That makes Concrete Mender™ a better value then most epoxies and polyureas. No other product we know of goes as far and performs as well.  Any way you look at it, Concrete Mender™ is a better value even it it was twice the price.

 

concrete mender

Freezer threshold repair with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.

Freezer, chiller and cooler thresholds have been an ongoing challenge to floor repair contractors and the USDA since the 1950’s. Recognizing the need to keep refrigerated and frozen food storage areas clean and sealed so they will not harbor lichen, fungus and pests, the USDA has issued zero tolerance guidelines for floor cracks and spalls in all food processing and refrigerated food lockers. Unsealed and opened joints also come under the watchful eye of those charged with keeping America’s food supply safe. Because thresholds are freezing cold on one side and at room temperature on the other, the thermal stress on the concrete is unrelenting and unforgiving. Couple this with forklift and wheeled cart traffic and you have a formula for disaster.

 

Fortunately, 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has become the accepted repair material for these very harsh conditions. The agency itself is forbidden from recommending one product over another, but the personal choice among active USDA inspectors is Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™. It’s thin, it gets in, it won’t pop out.

Some minimal prep work is required when working in the cold. Have the cracks and spalls as clean and dry as possible. This may not be easy, but it’s a step professionals know better than to ignore. Next, apply Mender to the base and sidewalls to seal off any free moisture movement into the repair area. Immediately follow by filling the spalled area or crack, almost to the top, with manufactured sand or approved quartz. Flood the sand to refusal, making sure the Mender saturates each grain. For larger areas, a bulk mixed mortar of Mender and sand may be easier to handle and install. Keep all materials at room temperature or warmer to speed up cure time. Even then, one should plan on an hour or more if temperatures are extreme. However, since all conditions vary, onsite testing is the best way to insure the time at which freezer floors and thresholds will be traffic-ready. Contractor field reports are very solid in reporting that 10 Minute Concrete Mender is the only thing that works in these tough repair situations. Click here for step by step bulk application instructions.

 

1. Remove existing concrete to wood base.

2. Saw key-way at a 45° downward angle on the cold side of the

threshold toward the freezer.

3. Using a diamond shaped pattern, drive sheet rock screws into

the base leaving 3/8″ of the screw sticking up, to act as a

dowel pin for the finishing lift of 10 Minute Concrete

Mender and sand aggregate.

4. Place 10 Minute Concrete Mender to grade. When fully cured

(about an hour at 32F, 0C) sawcut the warm side joint and fill

with Roadware Flexible Cement II™.

5. Reopen to traffic when Flexible Cement II is fully cured.

Continue reading Freezer threshold repair with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™. →

concrete mender

New Roadware Estimator App

UPDATE: The new online Roadware product estimator runs on most browsers and mobile devices including iOs and Android. Click here for the Roadware Online Product Estimator.

Announcing the Roadware Product Estimator App for iOS devices.

 

Users of iOS devices such as the iPhone or the iPad now have a convenient way to estimate the amount of Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ needed to repair a concrete crack, joint or spall.  Since Concrete Mender may be extended with sand at a ratio of two parts sand to one part liquid, estimating product usage is more challenging. The Roadware App eliminates the guesswork and gives users an estimated usage in 600ml cartridges and gallons of material. Sand ratios can be adjusted from none, 2:1 and 3:1 for special applications. An internet connection is not necessary when using the App so you can make an estimate from anywhere.

The Roadware App can be downloaded for free at the iTunes store by searching for Roadware or by clicking here.

 


Enter the crack dimensions in English feet and inches or metric meters and millimeters.

Set sand ratio. Default is two parts sand two one part mixed Concrete Mender.

Click the Calculate button at the top.

 

The resulting screen shows:

Total cubic centimeters need to fill the repair area.

Total gallons of mixed repair material needed.

Number of 600ml cartridges of Concrete Mender needed.

Number of gallons of Concrete Mender needed.

 

MatchCrete

Using Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear to repair cracks on the historic Stone Arch Bridge.

This week the City of Minneapolis used Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear to repair cracks in the exposed aggregate walkway surface on the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota.   The Stone Arch Bridge is unique to the Mississippi River and features 23 arches, is 2100 feet long and 28 feet wide.

The bridge was built by railroad baron James J. Hill in 1883 and served as a working railroad bridge until 1965.  Today the bridge is mostly used by walkers and bicyclists.  The bridge also hosts many festivals and public events in the summer months.

In preparation for the summer festival season, City of Minneapolis crews used Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear to repair cracks in the exposed aggregate walkway surface. MatchCrete™ Clear is combined with matching rock to repair cracks and restore a consistent walking surface.

The process begins with routing out the cracks with a dry diamond blade
to remove loose dirt and debris. Clean and dry matching stone is placed
into the crack up to surface level.

Matching stone is added up to the surface level

Next, two-part blended MatchCrete™ Clear is poured into the repair up to the surface. This fills in all the voids between the stones and seals the crack.  MatchCrete™ Clear is a semi-ridged material that will support all kinds of traffic from pedestrians to industrial fork lifts.

MatchCrete™ Clear is added to the pre-placed stone

See video MatchCrete™ Clear application video below:

 

Repairs will have a, wet” look for a few months and will naturally dull over time. A clear coat sealing over the entire surface will off-set this effect.

MatchCrete™ Clear repair in exposed aggregate concrete.

In a few months, Repairs with MatchCrete™ Clear will dull and blend into the surrounding concrete.

Over time, repairs will become less shiny.

Update: June 24, 2012.

MatchCrete™ Clear repairs 18 days later.

 

I revisited the repairs on the bridge 18 days later. The surface has been sealed.  The repairs are performing as expected.

Roadware MatchCrete Clear is available is 50ml and 600ml cartridges and two gallon bulk kits.

 

Roadware MatchCrete™ Clear 71300 600ml Cartridge

 

 

Commercial and Industrial Concrete Repair Products