Tag Archives: crack injection

Roadware to Present at the ICRI 2020 Virtual Fall Convention

Kelton Glewwe is Vice-President of Marketing for Roadware Incorporated and an original founding partner of the company. Kelton has set up sales and distribution networks for Roadware construction products in over twenty countries around the world. He has worked on projects ranging from automated freezer warehouses in Washington to 100 year old railroad piers in New York and Airport Runways in Hong Kong. Kelton is a graduate of the University of Saint Thomas and lives in Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota.

Join me, Kelton at Roadware at @ICRIorg’s Virtual Fall Convention #ICRIFall20.  I’ve been selected to present in a product demonstration, Less Invasive Crack Repair for Concrete Floors and Structures on October 13, 2020. 2:40 – 3:10PM CST.  See a preview of the presentation on YouTube. Learn more about the virtual convention here.

Roadware is a proud member of the International Concrete Repair Institute.

New Full-depth Hairline Crack Injection Breaks the Rules

1006-STR Roadware Easy Injection static mixer for Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ and Easy-injection mixers make full-depth crack repairs in hairline cracks without cutting. This less evasive crack repair technique breaks the rules for concrete repair.

Broken Rule One
 Hairline cracks are not worth the trouble fixing.

Broken Rule Two
 You have to cut open a hairline crack if you want to actually repair it.

Broken Rule Three
Crack injection requires pumps, ports, slow epoxy, and lots of time.

Let’s look at these “rules” one by one. 

Broken Rule One: Hairline cracks are often dismissed as not worth fixing. However, it’s important to note that almost every concrete crack starts as a hairline crack. Some of these cracks are so tiny that they are not visible to the naked eye.

Cracking naturally occurs in concrete slabs as the concrete cures and shrinks. We use saw-cut control joints to guide the concrete to crack inside the designated joints, but sometimes the concrete cracks in unexpected places. We wish there were an efficient way to fix hairline cracks, but for now, we generally ignore them and attribute them to the nature of concrete. We might reassure customers by saying, “It will be fine; you still have aggregate interlock, and the crack is just on the surface,” or “All concrete cracks, and it’s just the nature of the product.” Unfortunately, customers who have invested in a new concrete floor are usually dissatisfied with these explanations.

The truth is, we would fix hairline cracks if there were a good and efficient way to do it.

Scoring a concrete crack with a diamond grinder.

Broken Rule Two: You have to cut open crack if you really want to repair it.  A repair material has to actually get into a crack so it will actually do some good. Anything short of that is no better than caulk. For the most part, this is true. We can’t repair what we can’t reach. Traditional cut and cover techniques us a diamond blade saw to open up a crack, forming a shallow well for Concrete Mender to accumulate and flow down into the crack. It works really well, and Roadware has been doing it for over twenty years.

What is needed is a way to actively push repair products into hairline cracks. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can do the job with simple techniques and Easy Injection Mixers. That brings us to:

Broken Rule Three: Crack injection requires pumps, ports, slow epoxy, and lots of time. 

For a successful crack injection repair you need to accomplish three things:

  • Delivery of materials to the repair area.
  • The repair material needs to set before if flows away from the repair area .
  • The repair has to be structurally effective.

The Roadware Easy Injection mixers make it easy to fill cracks as small as 20 mil (0.02 inches) with Concrete Mender. Simply drill a 3/8-inch hole into the crack and then push the almost-water-thin Concrete Mender into the cracks. You can see the Concrete Mender flow along the entire length of the hairline crack. You won’t need expensive injection pumps for this – just a cartridge of Concrete Mender and a manual application gun.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender starts to thicken and cure in about 5 minutes after application, so the material will stay where you put it. Traditional injection epoxies take hours to cure. In many cases,  at the end of the day, the epoxy all ends up under the slab and no longer in the crack.

Diagram showing Concrete Mender Soft-tip mixer injection into a concrete slab.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ with Microdoweling™ penetrates traditional bond lines and repairs concrete from the inside out. This structural polyurethane will not become brittle over time. Epoxy injection resins become very hard and brittle. As the concrete deflects under traffic, the brittle epoxy will start grinding away at the bond-line and the deterioration will start all over again. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender is designed to restore aggregate interlock and  deflect with the concrete under heavy traffic and loading. This structural polyurethane will not become brittle over time and is designed to bring the cracked concrete back to original pre-cracked condition.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender with Easy-injection mixer repairing a hairline crack.
Concrete Mender crack injection into 24 inches of concrete.
Concrete Mender crack injection into 24 inches of concrete. Notice the material penetrating full depth.
Hairline cracks less than 20 mil across repaired using Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender and Easy Injection application. UV Forensic Photography. See More Here

Getting Started

80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge
80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge

80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge

1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip
1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip

1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip

5300C 600ml Dual Cartridge Application Tool
5300C 600ml Dual Cartridge Application Tool

600ML (300x300) dual cartridge application tool for all Roadware 600ML cartridges.

Full Depth Crack Injection with Concrete Mender.

A 24″ deep core sample shows 100% injection repair with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.

For many years, engineers have looked for ways to fully inject repair polymers into cracked concrete structures. The general consensus is to seal off the crack with a sacrificial epoxy and install injection ports every few inches. Then thick epoxy is injected under high pressure into the crack with expensive resin injection pumps. The process is time-consuming, the epoxy is brittle, the equipment is expensive and the skill level is highly specialized. This makes epoxy injection slow, expensive and not really effective in the field.

At Roadware, we look for ways to make concrete repair fast, effective and easy.  

Fast is better. When injecting Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into concrete, the fast gel and cure time allows you to make a full depth repair from the bottom of the crack up to the top. If the crack you are injecting has a large hidden void, Concrete Mender repairs will start to gel and plug up the void in several minutes. Injection epoxy that takes several hours to cure will sink to the bottom of your crack and pool in the base before it has a chance to cure.

Effective. Concrete Mender is a Structural Polyurethane**.  It is about as hard as typical concrete with much greater tensile and bonding strength. It is super thin at 8cps with a surface tension 1/3 of water. It can to penetrate concrete cracks and surfaces. Concrete Mender does not need to be forced into cracks with high pressure pumps and extraordinary methods.  Concrete Mender can easily flow into cracks and fissures with just simple manual tools and a specially designed application mixer. You can repair more cracks in less time with less waste then ever before. Repairs are structural in nature and will move with the concrete, not against it like very hard epoxies.

Easy Application. For a repair to be effective in the field, it has to be simple enough for crews to apply efficiently. Installation productivity saves money.

Diagram showing Concrete Mender Soft-tip mixer injection into a concrete slab.
  1. To start, simply drill a 3/8″ diameter hole about one inch deep into the crack at several points along the crack. Clean the crack and holes with a vacuum.* (Click here to learn how to work safely around silica dust).
  2. Tape off the top of the crack and around the holes you just drilled with clear duct tape or Gorilla Clear Repair Tape. These tapes have a good adhesive that will stick to the surrounding concrete. Do not use packing tape or other tapes without testing them first.
  3. Assemble a cartridge of Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender using out specially designed Soft-tip static mixer. Purge the cartridge of air as directed and insert nozzle into the first hole you drilled earlier.
  4. Gently squeeze the handle of the gun and slowly inject Concrete Mender into the crack. Work product into several holes at a time, moving the cartridge back and forth among them. Allow time for  the Concrete Mender to start gelling in the bottom of the crack.  As the crack starts to fill completely, you will see Concrete Mender flow under the clear tape from one drilled hole to the other. You may see air bubbling up from one hole as you inject Concrete Mender into adjacent holes.
  5. Once the crack is filled to refusal, move on to the next few drilled holes until the whole crack is filled.
  6. After 10 minutes at 70 degrees or 23 C, pull the tape. You can use a razor scraper, grinder or polishing device to remove and excess material and blend in the repair.
Drilling a pilot hole into a crack to prepare for injection with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
Drilling a pilot hole into a crack to prepare for injection with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
A pilot hole drilled into a concrete crack and ready for injection with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
A pilot hole drilled into a concrete crack and ready for injection with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender. Clear repair tape temporarily seals the crack while being repaired.
Concrete Mender crack injection with speed inject mixer.
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender is slowly injected into the crack using a Soft-tip sealing mixer.
Inject Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into the crack until the product appears under the tape. This fills the crack from the bottom up.
Inject Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into the crack until the product appears under the tape. This repairs the crack from the bottom up. Work several holes at a time allowing the product to gel and seal the bottom as you go.
Concrete Mender crack injection into 24 inches of concrete.
Slowly injecting Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into 24″ of concrete using 600ml cartridge and soft-tip injection mixers.
Core drilling of Concrete Mender repair shows full depth repair down 24 inches using this method.
Core drilling of the repair shows full depth repair down 24 inches using this method.
The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
Concrete Mender repair shown under UV light. See how the Concrete Mender flows into the smallest cracks and brings the concrete back to a pre-cracked condition.
Concrete Mender repair shown under UV light. See how the Concrete Mender flows into the smallest cracks and brings the concrete back to a pre-cracked condition.

Using Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender and Soft-tip injection mixers, you can structurally repair concrete cracks and delaminations with simple tools and methods. This unique system saves time and money and allow for a high production rate for installers. The drill hole/inject method is much less invasive than traditional cut and fill methods and creates a lot less silica dust on the jobsite. The Microdoweling properties of Concrete Mender and Soft-tip Injection promises to be a winning combination for tough concrete repair challenges.

80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge
80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge

80300 Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender 600ml Cartridge

1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip
1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip

1006-STR 24-element static mixer with Easy Injection Tip

*“Workers may be exposed to dangerous levels of silica dust when cutting, drilling, grinding, or otherwise disturbing materials that contain silica. These materials and tasks are common on construction jobs. Breathing that dust can lead to serious, often fatal illnesses.” The Center for Construction Research and Training. Click here to learn how to work safely with silica.

** Structural Polyurethane: A polyurethane based material that restores structural integrity and aggregate interlock to distressed concrete by using low surface tension and low viscosity to penetrate concrete surfaces and cross-linking polymer chains to bond directly to the concrete-aggregate matrix.  This bonding action utilizes capillary forces to self-inject polymer chains into the surrounding concrete. This material should have a modulus of elasticity less than the surrounding concrete and should not become brittle over time. This material may be combined with manufactured sand to form a PCC compatible polymer concrete that can structurally repair concrete cracks  and spalls.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ Top Applications

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ top applications:

General full depth crack repair:

Use the high-penetration abilities of Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ to make full depth crack repair.

 

CRACK REPAIR

1. Clean out with diamond grinder and remove dirt and dust.
2. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
3. Add a fine graded silica sand and additional liquid to grade.
4. Strike off excess material and allow to cure for 10 minutes at 70°F.
5. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a grinding stone if desired.

 

SPALL REPAIR

1. Clean out with diamond grinder and remove dirt and dust.
2. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
3. Add a fine graded silica sand and additional liquid. Work in one inch lifts to grade.
4. Strike off excess material and allow to cure for 10 minutes at 70°F.
5. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a grinding stone if desired.

HAIRLINE CRACKS

1. Score the top of the crack with diamond blade or wire brush.
2. Remove dust with a vaccume.
3. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete
Mender™ supplied in twin cartridges and optional needle tip mixer.
4. Add a fine graded silica sand to larger areas and allow to soak in.
5. Strike off excess material and allow to
cure for 10 minutes at 70° F.
6. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a
grinding stone if desired.

SPALLED CONTROL JOINT

(Fully cured non-moving)
1. Clean out with diamond grinder and remove dirt and dust. Score back spall with blade for a finished look.
2. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
3. Add a fine graded silica sand and additional liquid to grade.
4. Strike off excess material and allow to cure for 10 minutes at 70°F.
5. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a grinding stone if desired.

DELAMINATED SLAB

1. Drill hole into void.
2. Remove dust with a vacuum.
3. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete
Mender™ supplied in twin cartridges.
4. Add a fine graded silica sand and
additional liquid to fill holes to grade.
5. Strike off excess material and allow to
cure for 10 minutes at 70° F.
6. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a
grinding stone if desired.

THRESHOLDS AND
UNEVEN SLABS

1. Clean out with diamond or wire grinder and remove dirt and dust. Score lower edge with diamond blade for a finished look.
2. Flood with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
3. Add a fine graded silica sand and additional liquid to a mortar consistency.
4. Shape with a clean steel trowel and allow to cure for 10 minutes at 70° F.
5. Open to traffic. Finish and blend with a grinding stone if desired. Maintain existing expansion joint if necessary.

When the busses have to keep rolling, Concrete Mender gets going.

When a city bus garage in the Pacific Northwest needed a fast concrete repair solution, crews turned to Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™

Mission critical concrete repairs is what we do here at Roadware. Facilities like city bus garages have areas that are required to be open and operational 24/7 365 days per year. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is your best choice for fast repairs that have to last.

January 18, 2014
Dear Roadware,
“I am writing this letter in regards to Roadware Incorporated, in particular their 10 minute mender concrete repair product. I have been involved in the concrete industry for 28 years. I am a former Certified American Concrete Institute field testing technician and have been an ACI Concrete Flatwork Finisher and Technician for more than 10 years. For the past 15 years, I have been working to perfect the art of concrete rehabilitation on structural concrete and Architectural concrete. Other repair textures include masonry, slate. granite, clay artworks and architectural stone works.At the 2011 World of Concrete Convention, I met with The Roadware sales staff. I was quite intrigued and impressed with their 10 minute concrete mender product line. I was given some test samples which ultimately persuaded me into using Roadware product.
Our first project using Roadware products was a complicated repair contract with a bus transit authority and I had to include a two-year warranty. There would be limited time access during the repair and I needed a product that would withstand heavy bus traffic within hours of application. I submitted my bid using the specifications and MSDS for the 10 minute mender product line and believe this may have been the reason I was awarded the job. End result 10 minute mender works! Fractured concrete, spalled concrete, cracked concrete. Concrete deficiencies e.g. all surface and deep restoration repairs. Microdoweling works period! 

While I was confident in the product, it is always reassuring to experience it first hand. I am quite familiar with what it takes to provide world class service to demanding customers. Roadware Employees deliver excellent customer service and unmatched product support.”

Sincerely,

William F. Neal
Bothell, WA

Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
The process starts with removing dirt and debris from the cracks and preparing them for repair.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Sometimes, remove and replace is not an option. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can have this back in service in minutes, not hours or days.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ mixed at a one to one ratio and blended with two parts sand. Each gallon of Concrete Mender makes about 2.2 gallons of repair material.

 

Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can be mixed in bulk with simple tools and equipment.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Manufactured sand or quartz is added to the Concrete Mender to make a trowel-able mortar.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is available in 10 gallon kits or convenient 2 gallon jug kits.
The Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ blended with silica sand is poured into the cracks and troweled flat.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Repairs can be made in all seasons with an ambient temperature range of -20F to 100F.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ repairs are ready for bus traffic in about 10 minutes at 70 degrees F.
Repairing concrete cracks with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
Customer letter to Roadware

 

 

All about Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender

Download your One Page Pitch and follow along.

At Roadware, we see lots of two-component polymer concrete repair products that claim to be just like Concrete Mender™. One even calls it self, “Quick Mender.”  They are all basically polyurea based products that are too thick to effectively penetrate concrete surfaces and are so reactive, they become too sticky and gooey to trowel in just a minute or two after mixing.  When you dig a little deeper, you will see a very distinct difference in genuine Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.

  • What is Concrete Mender? ProprietaryPolyurethane Blend
  • Formulation: Classified
  • Manufacturing: South Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA
  • Origin: NATO program for rapid bomb damage repair on runways.
  • Function: To penetrate deep into concrete cracks, joints, and spalls creating a structural repair in 10 minutes.
  • Military Use: Classified
  • Civilian Use: Repair cracks, joints and spalls in commercial, industrial and civil applications.
  • Service Life: Indefinite
  • Cure Time: 10 Minutes at 70°F (21°C)
  • Distribution: Worldwide Distributor Network

Surface Tension:

Surface Tension is a measurement of the ability of a liquid to overcome its own internal friction and penetrate into a material like concrete. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has a surface tension One third of water. It will penetrate concrete cracks and fissures quicker and deeper than water. This low surface tension lets Concrete Mender™ penetrate normal bond lines and allows structural bonding with the aggregate in the concrete. See the electron microscope slide below.

 
 

Low surface tension has another little hidden benefit.  It allows Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ to be combined with more than two parts sand and still be workable and trowel-able.  Try that with a polyurea and you will have a gooey mess on your hands.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be bucket mixed and applied like or mortar.
 
Roadware Microdoweling™ Technology:
 
Slab to slab micro-doweling action, provided by Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender, links concrete slabs together, locks them in place and allows for full-traffic, dynamic-load transfer, in 10 minutes. This micro-doweling action is more compatible with concrete and less re-active in harsh environments than even Poly-coated re-bar. Millions of micro-dowels penetrate, then bridge and bond, side by side, broken and jointed slabs. Hairline cracks, trench wide cracks, irregular cracks, cured control joints and variable depth spalls are candidates for this amazing technology.
 
Scanning electron microscope image of the interface between Concrete Mender™ and concrete.
 
In 10 minutes, at 70°F (21°C) , this micro-doweled bond has the same compressive and shear strength as poured and fully cured concrete. This makes bond-line failures a thing of the past. Parallel re-cracking, often experienced when epoxies cure out, are eliminated with Roadware’s micro-doweling technology.

Structural Polyurethane

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is a polyurethane based material that restores structural integrity and aggregate interlock to distressed concrete by using low surface tension and low viscosity to penetrate concrete surfaces and cross -linking polymer chains to bond directly to the concrete-aggregate matrix.  This bonding action utilizes capillary forces to self-inject polymer chains into the surrounding concrete. This material should have a modulus of elasticity less than the surrounding concrete and should not become brittle over time. This material may be combined with manufactured sand to form a PCC compatible polymer concrete that can structurally repair concrete cracks  and spalls.

Advantages– Due to the very low surface tension of the material and low viscosity, complete saturation bonding of cracks can be easily achieved. Minimal prep to remove loose debris is all that is normally required.  This can be considered a structural repair if the material is allowed to gravity flow to the full depth of the crack. Manufactured sand or quartz may be introduced into the repair as necessary to prevent under slab ponding and martial waste. For repair greater than 0.125 inches, specified sand may be added at a ratio of two parts sand to one part mixed polyurethane as the crack is filled to extend the material and add strength. The sand also brings the thermal coefficient of expansion of the repair material closer in-line with surrounding concrete. Polyurethanes of this nature may be applied in a wide range to substreight temperatures making them useful in frozen and cold storage warehouse applications or cold weather application below -20F (-23C). Repairs are typically ready to accept traffic in approximately 10 minutes at 72F (22C).

 

Toughness:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ mixed with sand gets about as hard as concrete, yet it’s modulus of elasticity is slightly less than concrete so it will move with the slab, not work against it.

 
 
Common uses for 10 Minute Concrete Mender™
 
Spalled control joints and cracks.
 
 
 
Spalls and holes.
 
 
Delamination Repair
Uneven slabs and thresholds.
 
 
Crack Injection using gravity:
 
Typical crack injection repair techniques involve epoxy, ports, pumps, and pressure to force thick epoxies into a crack.  Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ with its low surface tension can do same job in less time, less mess, and better performance.
 
 
 

Easy Floor Crack Injection using cartridges:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be injected into a wide range cracks and delaminations using a simple cartridge and special Soft-tip injection mixers.  Successful full-depth repairs have been made in 24″ of concrete.

Concrete Mender crack injection into 24 inches of concrete.
Slowly injecting Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender into 24″ of concrete using 600ml cartridge and soft-tip injection mixers.

Diagram showing Concrete Mender Soft-tip mixer injection into a concrete slab.

The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
The core sample shows full depth repair down 24 inches.
Hairline cracks repaired using Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender and Easy Injection application.

Vertical Crack injection

For fast and easy vertical crack injection on walls and structures, we recommend the Gebbie Tech System 

THE GEBBIE TECH SYSTEM TRANSFORMS VERTICAL CONCRETE WALL REPAIR

  • Comprehensive testing by Opus International Consultants – repairs have consistently achieved results higher than the manufactured panel.
  • Full training in the system – a step by step training video and instructional booklet is included within each kit.
  • Save time and money! Conventional repair methods with epoxy have longer repair times, additional downtime and are more expensive.
  • Use a hand gun – no need for expensive pumps! The Gebbie Tech System uses the cost effective Roadware 10-Minute Concrete Mender™ hand gun to repair walls.
  • Complete penetration. Due to the composition of the Roadware 10-Minute Concrete Mender™ the resin travels easily from the injection point.
  • The approved vertical wall repair system. The Gebbie Tech System is listed in Roadware’s 10 Minute Mender Concrete Data Sheet as the approved method of vertical concrete wall repair.
  • Repairs cracks from a hairline through to quarter inch. Walls are repaired within 2 – 12 hours depending on the temperature, and the length of the cracks.

Polishable:

Polishing your floor to a mirror like finish? Repairs made with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ will not smear into the surrounding surface or gum-up diamond polishing pads.  You can even add natural sand to match the grain and color of the surrounding concrete.

 
Polished concrete repair with Concrete Mender™ Off-white.
 
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.
 
 
 

Lower Cost:

By adding two parts silica or quartz sand to a gallon of Concrete Mender™ you will yield about 2.2 gallons of repair material.

 

A gallon of polyurea or epoxy will yield a gallon of repair material.  That makes polyurea more expensive to use even at half the material cost! This does not even factor in the hidden costs of short repair life, damage to the surrounding concrete caused by pre-mature failure, or the cost of redoing the repairs when they fail.

4030 Grit manufactured quartz sand is the standard sand used with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.
4030 Grit manufactured quartz sand is the standard sand used with Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender.

Packaging:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ hand packed with state-of-the-art packaging materials.  They have to be good. The very low viscosity and surface tension require it.

 
Bulk Application:
 
Due to the the extended working time formula, bulk mixing of Concrete Mender™ is easy.  Unlike polyureas that start to gel up instantly, Concrete Mender will remain workable and flowable for several minutes before curing begins.  Much less wasted product setting up in buckets.
 
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender can be easily mixed in a bucket with sand or used neat. No pumps of special equipment needed.
 
 
Pin-point Application:
 
With a Roadware needle tip mixer, you can apply Concrete Mender™ within-point accuracy delivering product to where it is needed most. Our needles come as small as 1.2mm in diameter.  If you can get a finger nail in the crack, we can get some Concrete Mender in there as well.
 
 
Use Roadware needle tip injection to repair hairline cracks in concrete floors.
 
 
 
 

Freezers:

Working in the cold?  We’re from Minnesota. We know first hand what it takes to work in freezing temperatures. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ can be applied at temperatures below -30 F ( -34C).  That is really cold.  Exposed flesh will freeze in seconds.  That is almost too cold to go ice fishing. Most repair products would freeze solid before curing and quickly fail.  Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ generates its own heat. Curing will take several hours, but you will still get the same great performance.

Colors:
 
Roadware Concrete Mender™ comes in two standard colors.  Concrete Grey and natural off-white. Since a typical repair is made up of two parts sand to one part liquid, the color of the sand will determine the color of the finished repair.  By adding colored quartz sand to off-white Concrete Mender, you can make custom colors as needed.
 
Use Concrete Mender Off-white to make your own colored repair by adding different colored sand at the time of application.
Use Concrete Mender Off-white to make your own colored repair by adding different colored sand at the time of application.
 
 
Specialty Applications:
 
We also custom make Concrete Mender in Safety Yellow, Red, Blue, and Black.  Use Concrete Mender Yellow to create permanent safety lines and marks in difficult areas like cooler and freezer floors.
 
 
 
Safety:
 
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is completely self-reacting and does not out-gas solvents or VOC’s when curing.  This material meets FSIS guidelines for work is federally inspected meat and poultry plants.
 

History:

For over twenty years, Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ has performed without fail in thousands of applications. Many times outliving the facility itself.

Supervalue warehouse cold storage floor
repairs with Concrete Mender™.
Concrete Mender repair in a cold storage warehouse after 15 years of heavy forklift traffic.

Utilizing technology developed to repair bomb damaged runways for NATO, Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ was reformulated and brought to commercial markets in the early 1990’s.  You can find us in nearly every industry that has concrete floors, decks, slabs or surfaces.

Links:
Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™

Availability:

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender is made in the USA and is available from Roadware authorized distributors and dealers worldwide. Call 1-800-522-7623 or 1-651-457-6122 to find a dealer near you.

Specifications:

Concrete Mender™ Data Sheet

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.

 

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ Best Practices

 

ROADWARE 10 MINUTE CONCRETE MENDER™

Buildings marked for demolition in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Recently, our Roadware distributor in New Zealand requested a list of best practices for using Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™.  Contractors in Christchurch are using Concrete Mender to repair many meters of cracks following recent earthquakes.   
Best
Practices
Storage
and Transportation
1.
Keep cartridges in original foil bag and store in
an upright position.
2.
Store on a cool dry place between 10-28 degrees
C (50 – 80 F). If cartridges are allowed to freeze below – 10 C (14 F) some material separation
can occur.  Return material to 25 C (75 F)
and shake or mix to re-blend before use.
3.
Handle with care. Punctures to the bag can cause
moisture contamination. Rough handling can cause cartridge cracking and
leakage.
4.
Ship in upright orientation in original shipping
containers.
Usage
1.
Read and follow illustrated instructions.
2.
Use gloves and safety glasses.  Concrete Mender is very thin and can
splash back if applied erratically.
3.
Make sure the flow-restrictor and mixer seat
properly.
4.
Use a new flow-restrictor and mixer every time.
5.
Small cracks less than 2mm should be cut open to
5mm for best results.  The 5mm cut
will form a, “well” for the product to accumulate as it soaks down into the
crack and will reduce material spreading on the surface away from the repair
area.
6.
Once material is flowing from the mixer, keep the
tip pointed down.  Use the thumb
release on the gun to stop the flow.
7.
Discharge the material from the cartridge
firmly.  Working too slowly can
cause poor mixing.
8.
Always apply a coating of Concrete Mender into the crack or spall before adding sand. This will give you better penetration and bonding.
9.
When applying with sand, make sure the sand and
repair area are completely saturated with Concrete Mender.
10.  Use a shop vacuum or compressed air to remove as much dust and contaminates from the
repair area.
11.  If you suspect there is water on the bottom of the crack that you cannot remove, repair the bottom half first and allow it to cure (turn grey) before repairing the top half.
12.  When working at below 0 degrees C, use a propane torch or similar method to remove any surface frost from the concrete before applying the material. Keep Concrete Mender and sand at room temperature before use.

13.  Needle tip mixers are great for better control and pinpoint application. They also can easily clog up when left filled with mixed product. Do not try and force a mixer or tip to clear by adding more force to the gun. You can blow out the rear seals and cause a mess.  Get a new mixer or tip and start over.

Concrete Mender™ is injected into cracked walls in Christchurch, New Zealand.

New Concrete Mender™ Mini Cartridge for precise application.

For the first time, Roadware 10 Minute C5150-mender-verticaloncrete Mender™, the industry’s only Microdoweling™ concrete repair polyurethane, is available in 50ml mini cartridges. The mini cartridge offers precise application control that is perfect for repairing hairline cracks. Each mini cartridge comes with a needle tip mixer and is simple to use. Use the 50 ml cartridge with the Roadware 5150 application tool. Each cartridge will repair about 10 feet of hairline cracks or 3 feet of 1/4 x 1/4 inch cracks.

 

Roadware 80105 50ml 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ mini cartridge with mixer and needle tip.

 

 

Use Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender to repair and re-bond delaminated concrete slabs.

Use Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender to repair and re-bond delaminated concrete slabs.

Roadware delimanition repairs are featured in the July 2008 issue of Concrete International. This is the official publication of the American Concrete Institute. The article was written by Nelson Tonet, President of Express Polymers and a Roadware distributor.

ABSTRACT
“Delaminations in concrete floor slabs can be difficult to repair in a cost-effective and timely manner. A newly developed product (Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™) that uses a two-part hybrid polyurethane with a viscosity similar to water can significantly reduce the difficulty of performing delamination repairs by easily flowing up to 10 ft (3 m) from an injection point and penetrating deep into concrete surfaces. The product also speeds up repair by setting in only 10 minutes, allowing the repair to be checked by sounding only 30 minutes after product placement.”

View full article in PDF format Delamination Repairs PDF

Here is a Roadware synopsis.

Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ is an excellent choice for repairing concrete slab delaminations. The very low viscosity of less then 8 cps and the exclusive Microdoweling™ penetration properties of the material allow it to flow deep into delaminated concrete voids. The Concrete Mender will restore aggregate interlock and will allow dynamic load transfer under heavy traffic. The expense and mess of pressure injection with epoxy can be avoided.

Two methods of repair have been successful. The first involved dry diamond drilling a 2 or 3 inch (5-8 cm) diameter hole into the concrete slab down to the delamination. Dust is removed with a shop vacuum. Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender is poured or pumped into the void. Only one or two inches (3-5 cm) of head pressure is required to push the material as far as 10 ft (3 m) into the delamination. When the material backs up to the top of the hole and the void is filled, silica sand is added and the hole is filled flush with the surface. Soundings are made with a hammer to verify the delamination is repaired in about 30 minutes after application.

Click here to see how Nelson Tonet repairs delaminated concrete slabs.

Another method is to drill multiple 3/8 inch (1 cm) holes into the concrete down to the delamination. Remove dust with a shop vacuum and inject pre-mixed Roadware 10 Minute Concrete Mender™ with a syringe tipped with a rubber gasket. With this method, you can actually see the material exit the adjacent hole and verify the material is filling the delaminated area. After filling, the holes are blended into the surrounding concrete with silica sand and Concrete Mender or re-drill 1/4″ (5 mm) deep and fill with a color matching concrete mortar.

See the movie:

Both methods will yield good results and are more cost effective than epoxy injection.