Concrete Foundations: Building a Tribe of Positivity and Purpose

Start 2025 off right with a fresh perspective on community, creativity, and concrete. In this episode, we talk about what it means to foster a tribe that thrives on collaboration and growth. Celebrate Alicia Dietz’s incredible grant win and learn how her journey inspires us all. We also uncover why more isn’t always better—spoiler alert: mixing 1300 lbs of Maker Mix in a barrel mixer can teach you some unforgettable lessons. Plus, we explore the power of intuition in design and share insights on Fusion sealer that could transform your projects. If you’re ready to leave negativity behind and step into a year of purposeful creation, this episode is for you.

Upcoming Workshops:

• Basics Fundamentals Workshop: February 1st–2nd in Goddard, KS. Register now at Concrete Design School!
  

#ConcreteTribe #CreativeCommunity #PersonalGrowthJourney #IntuitiveDesign #ConcreteProjects #ProblemSolvingTips #SealerSolutions #MakerMindset #NewYearNewMindset

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, Jon Schuler.

Hello, let's do it live.

We're gonna do it live.

Dude, it feels like it was last year that we spoke.

So long ago.

So long ago.

Yes, it was.

Yeah.

But it's 2025, I'm excited about it.

I think you're excited about it.

I think everybody's excited about it.

Yeah, I'm feeling good about it.

Feeling good about it.

Big news, Alicia Dietz won the grant that we talked about, I don't know, five, six episodes back, and we asked people to go and vote for her, and a lot of people did from us.

But from a lot, she has a lot of friends that were bumping it like, hey, go vote for Alicia, and people did.

So she won the $25,000 grant from Women's Net.

And so congrats to her.

Happy for her.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Anxious to see, she's got some really cool stuff that she does, man.

So people keep an eye out.

This will give her the spark and the financial, you know, a little bit of bounce to move her the direction she's trying to go.

So I think it's going to be awesome.

Good for her.

Yeah.

And she has a class.

She's co-teaching with Mark Melonas at the Penland School.

It's like an eight week class, which, Oh, God bless her, man.

I have a hard time doing like a three day class.

After that, I'm spent.

I can't imagine eight weeks, man.

I would be done, done, done for the year.

Like it's a wrap.

I'm going to the beach.

I'll see in 2026.

I couldn't do eight weeks, but you know.

Yeah.

Concrete is hard.

Concrete is hard.

It is hard.

So I got a whole list here of things, Jon, that I want to hit.

All right.

First things up, let's get the controversial stuff out of the way.

Well, before I get to the controversial stuff, I just want to recap a few things.

A, I just did a RammCrete workshop this last weekend.

So this last weekend did...

Yeah, you guys made a cool thing too.

Yeah, did the art plinth.

We did it, you know, version 2.0.

The first one, the mistakes I made was I used green pigment without calculating what that was going to cost me on the actual project I'm going to be using this on.

It was going to be way too cost prohibitive.

And secondly, I used too small of a caster.

The piece was too heavy and it was just almost impossible to roll around.

So we did it again.

I went to like a brown color and I used bigger casters.

It's a lot easier to move and I like the color better.

So we did that great class.

Seth Taylor came down, Wade Bloom.

Wade Bloom, yeah, yeah.

Man, it was a whole group of good guys in the class.

So great class, great time.

Totally just phenomenal Rammcrete Workshop.

That being said, we have a basics class coming up, which I don't even know the dates.

Let me pull it up.

Concrete Design School.

It's actually getting a lot of enrollments, which is cool.

Concrete Design School.

All right, so the basics class, it's the fundamental class, one and a half day, February 1st and 2nd.

So two, two and a half weeks away.

Yeah, right around the corner.

Yeah, it'll be a Saturday, Sunday.

So if you're interested, go to concretedesignschool.com.

And this is a good workshop if you're interested in getting into the concrete field for making countertop sinks, furniture, tile, whatever.

You're interested.

This is a good stepping stone.

And I have actually quite a few people registering that have been to classes many years ago.

They never really did anything with concrete.

Now they're interested in, you know, getting back into it.

And this is going to be a refresher for them.

So we have, I have several people signed up that are using it as a refresher.

So anyways, concretedesignschool.com if you're interested.

So the controversial thing that I just want to knock out of the way, we have several different Facebook groups, you know, and we moderate these groups.

And I just had to remove a person from one of the groups for just constant negative comments, right?

And it's one of the things like, you know, jokes great, make jokes, humor's great, blah, blah, blah.

It's always fun.

But when it's always like negativity disguised as a joke, and it goes on for years and years and years, and you're just like, really, dude?

And especially when your jokes always have to do with like ICT sealer, and you don't even use ICT sealer, but you always want to come in and throw these little grenades anytime somebody makes a post about it, it gets old.

And so I just want to say, like I had to remove that person.

2025, I'm just making a conscientious decision.

For so long, I've made room at the table for people that are just there just to create chaos.

Their only goal is to throw grenades, talk trash, be bitter, whatever.

2025, we don't owe anybody anything.

You're more than welcome at the table if you want to come and have a discussion, and we don't have to see eye to eye and stuff.

We don't have to agree on things, but what I'm not interested in is just entertaining people that are there just to be negative.

Like if that's your goal, there's other groups that are more your style.

We're not interested in that.

So anyways, just want to address that because I made a post about it, and I didn't even really need to make a post about it, but I just felt like I just want to make this clear.

Like this is done.

Like this type of interactions that people do, they join a group just to talk trash.

Like I'm done with that.

No more.

The tribe we're building, we have the Fitness Challenge at Justin Burd organized.

That's the tribe we're building.

I'm, every day when I log in, I see...

Positive, positive, positive.

Yeah, all the videos people are posting, and that's the direction we want to take the concrete tribe that we're building.

It's all about positivity.

Yeah, we're to continue to help inspire each other.

I'll tell you what, I mean, you're just talking about that thing right there.

Dude, I'm not going to...

In fact, I got on there the other day, yesterday.

I was roached.

I'm not going to lie.

I was roached.

With everything going on, I was roached.

I was pretty much spent.

But you know what?

To come in and pop that up, and like, you son of a bitch, you know what I mean?

Come on, let's go.

And just that little bit of encouragement and inspiration in everything we're doing, business, materials, the shop, clients, and in this case, working out, it goes so much further than just working out.

Just giving my own side of it.

I grabbed my son, come on, let's go, da, da, da, da.

And then we ended up, you know, what?

45 minute workout.

But it was great and ended up the two of us laughing and having a great time.

And it changed my entire mood for the rest of the evening.

That, this is where I want 2025 to be.

And having, again, hey man, whoever you are, whatever you're doing, whatever makes you feel like getting up this morning, is you need to go troll people and that's what makes you feel better maybe, or maybe you don't realize you're doing it, whatever.

I just say on my end, man, going back to flow, man, I want inspiration.

I want people working with each other to help inspire, pick each other up.

And I don't mean in a cheerleading only way, that's not what I mean.

What I mean is, to continue to foster an environment of positivity, not beating on each other or laughingly poking at each other.

Because yeah, I'm done.

I'm just tired of it.

I'm done with it.

I'm done.

It's not funny.

It's not funny anymore.

It hasn't been funny for a very long time.

So, hey, kudos to you.

Live your life.

I think it's amazing.

And if that's where you find your niche, it's just going to do it somewhere else.

Yeah.

I remember, I mean, this has been going on, this type of stuff.

There is a small group in the industry that does this.

But there's a small group.

Their fun is being negative.

Like that's where they get enjoyment, right?

And whenever you call them out on it, anytime you call them out on it, they're like, man, I'm just joking.

I'm just kidding.

You know, reminds me of a dog rolling over and peeing on itself is what it reminds me of.

But they never ever are like honest about their motives behind it.

And I remember Jeremy French years ago, this was going on.

And this was way back in the Concrete Kennertop Forum Day.

And Jeremy French finally wrote like an essay, as Jeremy French does, wrote an essay and just said like, this isn't funny, guys.

This is how I feed my family.

You're constantly trying to belittle, at that point is Buddy Road's products Delta Performance.

Yeah, undermine.

Yeah, you're trying to undermine people's perception of the brand or the products we saw or whatever.

And this is how I feed my family.

And it's not funny.

And your jokes are detrimental to my livelihood.

So knock it off.

And he was 100% right.

Like this type of stuff, when people are...

The jokes are always one way.

Like it's always joking at your detriment, but they're never joking about the products that are using from some other company, right?

The jokes are only going in one direction in a negative tone.

So yeah, I'm just...

I'm done with it, bro.

I'm done with it.

I'm no longer making space for that in my life, in any forums I moderate.

And I want to make it clear.

I'm not censoring anybody.

I'm not removing negative feedback.

If you use our products and you have a bad experience and you share that, that 100% stays up.

Yeah, all good.

We'll never take that down.

We'll have a discussion about it.

We'll try to troubleshoot it.

This is just about somebody being negative who doesn't use the products continuously for years on end.

That stuff's come to an end.

So, all right.

So on a positive note, a guy named Johnny Blout posted on the Kodiak Pro Facebook page or discussion page that, Steve, the guy is a wild man.

He ordered mix.

It's his first time.

He's used some other products, didn't have great results, whatever, and he listened to the podcast and got on Facebook and was like, man, this seems legit.

So he bought, I don't know, a pallet of mix or something.

And he cast a huge countertop, 1300 pounds, and he mixed it up in one shot in a barrel mixer, right?

Dude, that barrel mixer had to be straight up and down.

I don't know how you get 1300 pounds in it.

And he said it was.

He's like, yeah, dude, it was like, you know, he was like reaching in trying to like break up the clumps because it wasn't, he didn't have it horizontal enough to actually get the blades go to the mix, you know, and I had a conversation with him yesterday, but he's like, dude, this mix is legit.

And he posted photos and a thing.

And I said, well, I'm glad you saw it because we talk about a frame of reference.

People hear what we say and they think, oh, you're just salesmen, whatever.

But until you see, you know, if you used all the polymer modified mixes and I can name all the companies, it's pretty much all the other companies.

If you're used to polymer modified mixes, you hear us saying like, dude, this is night and day different.

You think we're just being salesmen, right?

You're like, yeah, whatever, whatever.

It's not until you actually use it and cast it, you're like, oh my God, they're right.

And he's like, yeah, he's like, when he demolded it, he couldn't believe it.

And I said, yeah, so now you have a frame of reference.

That's what we talk about.

And thank you for posting about that because that's what we discussed.

But the lesson, and he said it was a lesson.

The lesson is don't mix 1300 pounds in one shot.

I told him next time, it would be a lot faster to mix 650 pounds and then 650 pounds.

Have that mixer cranked down so it's more horizontal.

And have a buddy helping you get that mix going, pour it into some muck buckets, slide it off, get the next mix going while your buddy's pouring it in the farm.

And it will actually go faster.

And the mix will be mixed a lot easier because you're not fighting this mixer.

It's not doing anything.

It's just straight up and down and just spinning.

Right.

Yeah.

So there was that.

Any thoughts, Jon?

No, I agree with you.

I talked to him as well.

He just had some questions about curing practices and we got in that conversation.

And he mentioned the same thing.

I'm like, you did what?

I'm like, Oh my gosh.

And then, so now I'm picturing, because certainly we've all done this.

I'm like, what mixer can hold 1300 pounds?

Because I'm still picturing, you know, turning it horizontally to make sure it goes to the paddles and yada, yada, yada, yada.

Like, Oh no, no, no, this just your standard barrel mixer.

And it certainly says right on the side, you know, 1300 pound capacity.

Holy moly.

Yeah, I have an Eimer.

I don't know what it is.

It's the biggest barrel mixer they make that's electric.

I don't know the model number, but it does say, I'm going off memory.

I could walk in the back and look, but it says like capacity is like 12 cubic feet and then output is nine or nine and a half cubic feet.

But that's not true.

That's not true.

I would say 70% of whatever it says on the side is realistic.

Nine and a half cubic feet would be like 1300 pounds, right?

Let me see.

Maybe it's nine.

Let me see.

9.5.

Yeah, that would be 1425 pounds.

So maybe it says nine cubic feet, but just because it says it, don't believe it.

I would say whatever your mixer says, multiply that by 0.7 and that'll be more realistic for its actual useful output from whatever they claim.

Agreed.

Just my experience.

Yup.

That's right.

That's what he's saying.

That's right.

That's right.

I'm just actually on because I was talking to him yesterday and I don't know why the Eimer website's not opening up.

It looked like they changed the name of them too.

They were called Minute Man and now they're called Workmans or something like that.

So I think you have a Workman 350.

That's what I was trying to pull up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think you're right.

It's been a great mixer, dude.

I have zero complaints.

I've never replaced anything on it.

I've never replaced a belt.

I've never greased the thing.

I've never done a damn thing to it.

And it just runs.

And I've had that.

I bought that mixer brand new in 2004.

They just dropped it behind my shop.

The freight company didn't even tell me.

I pull into my shop.

I don't know how long it had been there.

I pull in my shop and there's just a mixer sitting behind my shop by the roll up door.

Brand new.

Just sitting there.

Could have been there for a day.

Could have been there for, who knows?

But yeah, I've had that thing ever since, and I can't complain about it.

I did see, speaking of mixers, I did see that Colo Mix is coming out with a new handheld mixer that has like all this digital crap screen on it, on the top of it.

Really?

Dude, I feel, you and I were gonna go to World of Concrete, and I'm feeling a little under the weather, you're feeling under the weather, I'm like, this is just, it's a horrible idea for us to go to Vegas.

We're both gonna just get raging sick if we do this.

But we were gonna go to World of Concrete, and had I gone into the Columix booth, I would tell them, this is a horrible idea.

Keep it analog, don't put digital screens, it's kind of like a countdown timer or like whatever, so you can time your mix.

Dude, screens on a handheld mixer are a bad idea.

Like anything like that's a bad idea.

Keep it as simple as possible.

Keep it as simple as possible would be my advice to Columix if you're listening.

Not that you need my advice, but I'm just saying.

This applies to what we do.

Make things intuitive.

There was a guy named Dieter Rams that's a very famous designer.

He worked for Braun back in the 1950s, 60s, 70s.

But he had the 10 Commandments of Good Design, something like that.

You look it up, Dieter Rams' Commandments of Good Design.

But one of them is good design is intuitive.

Good design is intuitive.

Apple is a great example of this.

Apple, especially 15 years ago, was extremely intuitive.

Yeah, it used to be.

Yeah.

It was the menus on everything was simple.

You know, the interface was simple.

What I remember, my MacBook Pro that I bought in like 2000, probably, A, it was a tank.

You could change the memory on it yourself.

You could change the battery on it yourself.

Everything is replaceable.

The thing was built like an armored tank and it was beautiful.

And when you shut it, the button to open it had a little LED.

And when you shut it, the LED started glowing.

It was like on a dimmer.

It would glow and then get dim at the cadence of a person sleeping, the breathing.

That's what it would do.

And you knew that computer was asleep.

It was a very subtle detail that told you the computer was asleep.

You knew it was asleep, right?

But if you remember back then, and probably still like this, I don't have a Windows laptop.

But back then, if you had a Windows laptop, had all these little sounds and lights on it, like lights would be flashing.

You're like, what the hell is that?

What was the red light I've been flashing for?

Yeah, they tried to make it so futuristic.

Yeah, and you're like, what is going on?

You're clicking, making all these noises.

And the Macs didn't do that.

The Macs were super intuitive.

Now, Apple's lost its way since Steve Jobs passed.

The engineers have taken over.

Designers are out the window.

Engineers are doing everything.

I mean, if you updated your iPhone, open up the Photos app, it's a mess.

Everything's a mess, right?

They can't help themselves but overcomplicate it.

They take away intuition and they make it complex.

They make it difficult.

But my point is, as concrete craftsmen, if you're in the business of making things for customers, make them intuitive.

Make it intuitive.

Whatever it is.

If it's a table, let it be known it's a table.

Like, don't disguise it as a pirate ship.

You know, it seems obvious, but it's amazing.

Like, what is this?

What does this do?

I don't know what this does because it's not intuitive.

And as the maker, you know what it is because you're in your brain.

But as a consumer walking up with fresh eyes and never seen it, they're baby deers or they're taking their first step, right?

They have no idea what that is.

And that's your job, is to make it intuitive.

So anyways, I'm going off track, but it does tie into what we do and it ties into Colabix.

Colabix, you Germans!

Listen to me.

Don't do it.

Yeah, I haven't seen it, so I'm gonna hold powder on that one.

Well, you want to get in the meat of this podcast, what you really want to talk about, Jon?

Yeah, I guess so.

You know, it comes full circle to the very things of why we talked about the first part, the controlling and da-da-da-da-da, but yeah, let's hit it.

Well, this goes back to intuitive.

You are in your head, Jon Schuler is in his head.

Jon Schuler fully understands everything, right?

You fully understand it.

But as the consumer, it's my first day in the world, you know, never driven before, I'm brand new, and I'm trying to understand what fusion is, how it works.

I would say that we haven't been as simple as an intuitive in explaining it as we could.

And that's also on me, because you've told me some stuff, I'm like, oh, okay, like I didn't know that, right?

And it's not because we're like withholding information to be difficult, it's just, you already know this, it's in your head.

But I would say it's good to maybe rephrase it in a way that helps people understand the reasons why and what this is and how it's not.

I think some people are liking it to just another topical, you know, another you seal or age something or 327 something.

Exactly.

Here's another option.

And they're using it in that way.

And that's not correct at all.

Yeah, they weren't getting the results that were happening.

Yeah, but they were confused.

And again, you know, Jocko, anybody listens to Jocko, extreme ownership.

We'll take that.

We'll take that on us.

That's on us.

Let us start the conversation again and explain in a more intuitive way what Fusion is, how to use it, why you use it.

You know, you were describing to me earlier about silica technologies and stuff, and that's a great topic to talk about.

Because a lot of us don't have an understanding of what's going on, and I think if we did, it would all make more sense.

So I'm going to let you take over, and you do you.

Sure.

Well, I think this is to start with.

I want to back up just a little bit.

And if this helps anybody explain why densifying or what we call silicate, why silicate, steelers, densifiers, and so forth, why they can have great repellency, why we call the water-beating effect, but that they darken when you leave wet objects on top.

And this happens to be one of the things where over the years with my technologies, ICT, you know, people get bummed out about it.

They leave a wet thing, even though that wet circle or whatever goes away, it's still the idea that it's happening.

So let me explain why that happens with silicates.

And this is all silicate technologies, and that's kind of been lumped together now, everything from, you know, based on the ion, lithium, sodium, potassium, or so forth, or even the newer ones called colloidals, but the realities are all colloidals.

So just think of them as silicates.

Any product with silicates on board, hardening, densifying, and so forth, silicates, by their very nature, are hydrophilic.

Hydrophilic means that they are water loving, water absorbing, you know, however we want to look at hydrophilic as the word.

So when we put these silicates in the concrete, either as admixtures or, in our case, topically as densifying hardening technologies, as long as that silicate is active, meaning it has not turned into a crystalline form yet, it is actively absorbing moisture.

And that is the very reason why when we set a wet object on, hey, why do we get this, you know, I was gonna say a question, hey Jon, I noticed we put the wet cup sat there for a while and look at this, it made a dark ring and it goes away, but oh my goodness, how come I can't stain it?

Why won't oil go through?

Well, because you still have silicates, active silicates, somewhere in that system, meaning in the concrete, and the moment you set water on it, it wants to absorb that water.

It's literally attracted to it, and draws it in, and creates the dark ring.

So I just want everybody to know that what I just described there is the reason.

Fusion, what's the whole idea with fusion?

So again, let me back up.

When we take, again, now we're gonna say ICT.

When we've taken ICT, and let's say Protect, and we use Protect as the sealer, all of us using these products have got accustomed to impregnating, saturating, and even super saturating the concrete with these silicates, these water-loving properties.

Then we have learned to use torches and vinegar wipes to try to trick those kind of things.

But the reality is silicates are incredibly strong, and we actually end up super saturating the concrete.

In other words, we're feeding it far more silicate than it actually truly needs upfront, because our hope is in the longevity of things, six months, a year from now, it chemically transitions the concrete to glass.

And yes, that absolutely happens, but the pace of which that happens is all dependent on how much silicate is absorbed or soaked into that concrete, and the time frame it takes that those silicates create crystalline forms by reacting with mineral-based technologies in the concrete.

So I hope that clears up some of it and didn't make it more confusing.

The reality with our concretes today, let's say Maker Mix, when you're using Maker Mix, between the density and the much smaller amount of, used to be all calcium hydroxide, there isn't any anymore with our kind of concrete, so you don't need a whole lot of silicate.

You truly don't.

So the idea with fusion was, instead of super saturating this concrete like we have been, and effectively shooting ourselves in the foot, and when I say shooting ourselves, it's because when we are trying to create something, I'd love to say, and we all say, hey, I can't sit on this for six months, till it's bomb proof, I gotta get it in place.

And then, hey, someone sets a wet object on it.

Why did this happen?

Well, because you have active silicates and it's absorbing water.

The whole idea with fusion was to quit supersaturating the concrete.

Stop it.

We don't, like, legitimately, we don't need that much silicate on board.

To accomplish the hardening and densifying or crystallizing effect that we're looking for could be achieved with our initial protect applications, which most guys are diluting anyway, say three to one and two to one.

And you don't need multiple of them.

Like, you really only need one of each.

And talking to a few guys like Seth Taylor, and this is where the conversation gets lengthy, when you see or recognize, should be the better word, when you recognize what you're seeing with the concrete's reaction, that's going to help you decide if you only need a three to one or you actually, actually need a two to one.

And how do you know that?

Well, guys that have been using Protect long enough or Satin, once you apply the three to one, you soak it in.

See, I'm not there.

I don't know how robust, I don't know how much material left to soak in, et cetera, et cetera.

So once that sets, you run your torch and get ready.

If you see that concrete, and this is where these legacy words come up, the concrete's locked up.

Man, Jon, I hear it all the time.

Man, after the first three to one, my concrete's locked up.

I'm like, man, that's awesome.

But see, fusion wants the concrete open.

What fusion wants to do now is take that very hydrophilic nature of the silicates on board, and use that as the means to draw the fusion in.

It's literally using its ability to want water to pull the fusion technology in.

And then once you're in, you create the thermocatalytic effect.

You lock everything in, having the best of both worlds.

You got enough silicates on board for your early and your long-term chemical transition into glass.

And at the same time, you did not supersaturate by getting too much.

And now we turn around and, let's say, melted your ceramic-based technologies directly to the concrete so that they can't be worn off.

That's the benefit of the two.

And the difficulty, and, like you said, we'll take it on our own shoulders is, the first thought was, and I use the word, the acronym 2K, fusion is a 2K product, meaning it is a part A and part B.

So, let's say, general thinking in most industries is a two-part product as, again, a cross-linker, you mix them together, you mix them together maybe five or 10 minutes before you're going to use them, and then you have this limited open window of pot life after the induction time, and, hey, I better use it up in 30 minutes or whatever the case may be.

And 99% of that information does not apply to fusion.

Fusion is a two-part, but the catalyst in this point is a thermal responsive catalyst.

So, you have 10 days to 14 days for its induction time.

You want to mix it plenty of time, I'd say minimum of a day before its use.

So, it's homogenized into the solution.

And then you have this wonderful open time.

And then, I don't know, so that I think is, not I think, this is where people, let's say got off track.

There has been people, and I've heard it many times, where they apply ICT, and again, we'll use the legacy word lock up, and they do all the steps, and they lock it up, and then this whole idea like, wow, if I could just put this sacrificial something over it, that'll get me through this reaction time, and that's what we've called it, and they're referring to the silicates, and so maybe I've heard everything from you, Seal.

Gosh, I can't even think of some of the other ones.

Oh, acrylic.

DuraTech, and I mean, yeah, a bunch of stuff, right?

I mean, guys, I was like, you know, spray-based varnishes and all kinds of things.

And without going into the downside of those, because the downside is, I'm gonna tell you, they're not gonna last.

And that's the bummer, so I don't wanna freak everybody out, but it's gonna not be very but long, and that stuff's gonna be peeling off like burnt skin, because it just won't bond to the ICT over time.

But I get it.

So what we've all tried to do is overcome, I'm gonna say, the short-term characteristic, short-term meaning even six months to a year, of this hydrophilic response of the silicates.

And the reason for all that response is because we've been super saturating with these silicates in hopes of creating a sealed surface.

So we were undoubtedly, I mean, equivocally applying far more silicates than we ever need.

That's the reality.

And that's their call out, the downside, the shortfall, whatever, the weakness.

That's why we have the darkening effect, plain and simple.

So fusion, the whole idea with fusion to begin with was, that, well, let's overcome that.

Let's stop doing that because we don't need all that silicate.

And that's the, like, Jon, okay, hey, I still put three three to ones and two two to ones.

I'm like, man, no, man, that's, that's too much.

You don't need all that.

So back it all down, back it all down.

And then bring your fusion in early, follow through, use it, and you get it.

And the other big reason was, there's a, gosh, I don't know, 100,000s of different ceramic-based technologies out there.

And so it was very difficult hearing from guys who would pick up a product at their local Pep Boys or whatever they were doing, R1s, Gheons, da da da da da, and getting various responses, good or bad, trying to utilize the SiO2s.

Okay, well that's, again, so enough of that.

And some guys in Canada can't even get the products, right?

So I'm like, okay, I need to create a solution.

That's how I felt for myself as well, so that we get past the whole idea of needing ceramics.

Now, bar, clients can still use now the spray-based ceramics as a long-term to maintain wear and repellency and everything on there, but it's no longer dictated on our end.

I wanted to get that off the table.

And then the other thing was, yeah, create a ceiling that everything's compatible, number one, because compatibility is a real issue, and follow that with the idea that we don't continue to keep supersaturating our concrete, leading to the very missteps that bothers us along the way, specifically, the absorption or the, as we all refer to it, the darkening of wet objects being left on the surface.

So that's in a nutshell, A, why it happens, B, why we're overcoming it, and C, why fusion, used simply as a replacement for topical technology, is not going to create the resistances that you're looking for.

Awesome.

So while you were talking, I went to the ICT Facebook discussion page and you'd posted that this is something you were going to talk about and asked people to post their questions.

You want me to go through some of these?

Yeah.

Okay.

So Simon Tiple wants to know, can he go over existing sealers to gain the benefits of fusion other than ICT?

So if somebody sealed it with XS327 or H12 or you seal, can they use fusion over those sealers?

Well, you would if you sanded the sealer.

I mean, if you got rid of that sealer.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that would be a resale.

So if we're talking about reseal situations, yeah, yeah, no problem.

Yeah, but you have to remove the old stuff.

You wouldn't want to put it...

Yeah, sorry.

I have the same coupling technologies and fusion that allows it to adopt or let's say cannibalize any old technologies that may still...

Because you're never going to get every bit of old sealer out of the concrete in a reseal situation.

Yeah.

But if the question is, hey, I have some 327 that's not performing very well.

Can I just put fusion over the top?

Then, well, I'm straight up going to tell you, no, I would not recommend doing that.

But two, yeah, you could run through it all.

But that doesn't mean it's going to increase your protection.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you're putting it over a plastic coating, then it's not going to interact with the concrete.

So you're not going to really get a whole lot out of it.

No, and that's the idea that back to what I was just trying to relay.

When we're using the protect or the satin, but I'm hoping with this new matting agent, satin is going to be gone here pretty soon.

Gone as in you're going to create your own version of satin by using a matting agent.

So the whole idea is still utilizing the silicates for everything, all the benefit of sealing technologies has to offer.

But at the same time, we are going to use the characteristic of that silicate to suck the sealer, meaning the fusion, into the concrete, into the pore structure as deep and hard as we can, and then thermal catalyze it there so it can't be worn off.

Now in this case, if it's simply going just over something, then you're not getting that benefit at all.

So I think the first part of the question is a very good question for people to know.

The second part, he's asking, specifically for him, he used Odie's oil to seal concrete on an old project, which is a wood sealer, you know?

It's like tongue oil and beeswax and mineral oil, I don't know, there's a bunch of stuff in it that he soaked the concrete with.

He wants to know if, can he put this over it?

I would say, I don't know.

No, I'm going to say no, because as I'm just using your language, can I put this over it?

Again, see, this is not an over it point of view.

Yeah.

It's not totally.

My answer to that would be this.

If you could A, this is what I do.

Sand out some of that O, you don't even have to get it all out.

Apply a little bit of protect, get some silica, draw that in.

And then if you see the absorbing nature of it, now you can bring fusion on board.

No problem whatsoever.

Thermo set it.

Use that catalytic reaction right there and there.

And boom, now any of that Odeus is still might be locked in the concrete.

It's gonna be from here to the dawn of time, or the end of time rather.

Curious, there you go.

Now you just, cause that's the kind of the cool thing with this catalyst without going into catalytic technologies.

The amazing thing about this catalyst is that it's not, it doesn't have the characteristic to, as other technologies, that this catalyst only reacts off the polymers.

Well, that's not what this one does.

No, not at all.

So the whole idea in this one for me, and say my point of view, since I'm the one that worked with the company to create it, is that we are using heat as a way of essentially melting this and grabbing anything within contact to be able to bond with.

And you're not going to break that bond.

Gotcha.

So that's to the, you know, to glass, to steel, you know, to any minerals in the concrete, to the sand.

If there's some oil in there, I'm telling you, man, it's just it's going to grab right onto it and melt it right into it.

No problem at all.

The second question he has, how long does mixed fusion last?

What's the pot life and how do you store it between uses?

So that's another one.

I'll take a step back.

One, Jon Schuler problem.

Jon Schuler and Jon Schuler shop problem.

Or let's say what I didn't like.

I don't like mixing a 2K product and then being bound by that open or short.

Pot life, right?

An induction time and then a pot life.

And that pot life could be anything as short as 15 minutes to maybe 45, right?

Or an hour, all depending on conditions and so forth and so on.

For me personally, that would drive me bananas.

Because if I started with one piece and that roller got all jacked up, I'm trying to find another one and the whole time I feel like I'm under this gun, you know, it's almost like in my head, I hear the click, click, click, click.

How long before this is going to start getting gummy on me?

Did I mix enough?

Did I mix too much?

So those are the Jon Schuler problems that I wanted to overcome.

So with this particular product, excuse me, once you mix the A and B, and for mixing, just take a syringe, squirt it in the bottle, gently shake it up.

That's what we're calling mixing.

You're looking at 10 days to 14 days.

10 days is, I'm going to say, that's my real comfort zone, is 10 days.

But I've used plenty of product at 14 days without a problem.

But right around 20, yeah, you're done.

Like, no, there's, you literally, what happens is, it's not that the term catalyzed is happening, it's the catalyzed itself under the pH condition has broken down and it's no longer active at all.

And even if you try adding more catalyst, cause you're like, hey, wow, I put it in half a quart and yeah, Jon said, maybe I could just put more catalyst in it.

No, not at all because anything that broke down within that solution will immediately break down any more the moment it hits solution.

So that's not the way it works.

I went to lunch with some of the guys in this Rammcrete class and a few of them have been using fusion and one of them kind of framed it as a negative thing that had long pot life.

The problem was you need to catalyze the day before and because you need to catalyze the day before, you can't do it just in time.

So you can't be ceiling and you come up one foot short and make up a little bit more.

And so they're like, yeah, I got to make more than I need.

In my opinion, you always made more than you need.

If I was using any catalyzed product, I always overestimated and just kind of thought, I'm going to throw away a little bit that's left in the bottom of the cup, but it's better to have too much, not enough.

You never want to run out halfway and then have to mix more because E through 2K, you'd mix it up and you had to mix it for like three minutes and let it set for 15 minutes and mix this and mix that again and let it set.

It had all these steps.

So if you stopped and waited 30 minutes to apply that last foot, it's going to stand out like a sore thumb.

You're going to see that.

Yeah.

So you'd always, at least me, I'd always mix more than I needed.

I didn't read his third question, Simon's, but it plays into this.

He's asking, is there a way to speed up?

If you have to mix up a little bit more, is there a way to speed up the chemistry?

If you run short.

Okay, so always mix a little bit more than you're going to need and have some extra, and then you have two weeks to use it.

Yeah, my simplest way of, without going into acid tails and everything, think of polymers, right?

We all look at, it's just, whatever, something there.

So micro polymers, I want you to think of, again, like a centipede, if you will, or something like that.

And all the legs on that centipede are the bonding points, if you will.

The reason why this catalyst needs to go in early is you need that catalyst to find an equilibrium around all the feet, okay?

But by blending it fast, it's not going to achieve that at all, you know?

It's time.

The only way is time.

So each of them, each of those charged tails, those charged hairs, whatever you want to cut, like a caterpillar, you know, it needs time to find itself around all those kind of things, not speed.

You know, it's like concrete, right?

You know, we look at like the fast setting stuff and wonder why we never get the densities and the good concrete out of something that speed sets versus curing at 75 degrees.

It, you know, it's just totally different.

And it's just about getting used to something different.

I get it.

Gabriel asked, can Fusion Protect glazed finishes the same way as a coating does?

No.

Well, again, my answer is it would offer you the benefit of all Fusion has to offer.

If Fusion can be drawn in, if it's simply put on as a replacement of a coating, then you're not going to get the benefits out of it.

Will it be hard?

Well, yeah, it'll be hard, but you're not going to get the benefits out of it.

Gotcha.

It'll just create a shell, nothing more than that.

Well, he asked a second question.

He wants to know, will Fusion on its own wear away?

For example, outside furniture won't be used as much as inside furniture, so can Fusion technically last forever, or will it wear away on its own?

Does Fusion just like out in the elements, will it wear off, or will it pretty much stay intact?

I don't think in the element.

I mean, I think everything wears.

I don't think anything is going to hold up for eternity.

But my best analogy would be this, it's powder coating.

So what I've taken is this technology from the idea of powder coating.

You're right, you spray on this powder, it goes through this bake, this thermal effect, and then boom, comes out in this, not just a hard shell, but this incredible bond to whatever you got it to bond to.

You baked it to steel.

Everything from steel to whatever.

Okay, well, but if you take that powder-coated something and put it outside, I mean, eventually it's gonna wear.

That's just the way it is.

So yeah, I mean, fusion is...

I'm gonna, you know, this is probably Jon, oh, you know.

No, it's amazing, man.

It really is.

It's an incredibly novel approach.

It's pretty, it's very, very cool.

It's incredibly hard.

That hardness is gonna get pushed even further with this oxide-based matting agent.

But so it's pretty insane.

But I believe like anything else, you know, time will take its toll.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, granite mountains wear away to flatlands.

Yeah.

But it can be maintained.

Again, this is a benefit, in my opinion.

You know, we'll laugh here.

We've certainly been talking about ceramic technologies, SIO technologies for a very long time.

And so in this situation, in many situations is your basic ceramic based technologies.

Again, now we're talking about the spray, the maintenance kind of stuff.

You know, all of these, with this technology, will have a direct benefit.

So your way of, in other words, putting it outside and just being like walking away, will anything ever happen to it?

Well, of course it would.

But maintaining it, if it was maintained in some way, then yeah, then you're going to have an amazing longevity to it.

Well, the other thing I'd say is it's a time scale thing.

Like, what are we talking about?

And the reason I bring that up is Rammcrete.

You know, so there's ancient Indian structures in the desert in Arizona that are over 1,000 years old, built by Native Americans.

And the Great Wall of China is built of rammed earth.

And so there's all this rammed earth stuff.

And they didn't have UHPC, pozzolan mix designs that we have today, you know?

And they lasted, they're still standing.

You know, so they've already stood 1,000 years.

They'll stand another 1,000 or 2,000 more years before there's significant degradation.

So imagine had they used the technology of products we have today.

We're talking about 10 or 20,000 year longevity.

So it's a time scale thing.

So when people ask these questions, you're like, well, yeah, it will, but we're talking about thousands of years, you know?

So I would say I have outdoor furniture at my house.

We had a lot, there's still snow.

I'm looking outside my shop right now.

It's still all white outside, but I have outdoor furniture that got probably an inch of ice on it and then got six inches of snow on it.

And this has happened over the years many times.

It happened in Arkansas.

It's happened here.

I've never resealed the pieces.

I've never done anything to these pieces, and they were sealed with first gen ICT.

And these are crappy Buddy Rhodes polymer mix concrete, not the concrete that we have today.

And that being said, there's no damage.

There's no degradation.

I don't do anything.

I don't do ceramic coatings.

I don't cover them.

I recommend people, hey, pull stuff in in the wintertime.

Don't let ice sit on it, blah, blah, blah.

Because ice soaks in or water soaks in, it freezes, expands, and that's what makes mountains wear away.

But I don't do it.

I advise people to do it, but I don't do it.

And I'm telling you, these things are great.

They're fine.

They're perfect.

There's no sign of damage or aging or degradation in any way.

So it's a time scale thing.

Now, will that be forever?

No.

100 years from now, I'll probably see some pitting.

500 years from now, it'll probably be significant.

A thousand years from now, it's going to be problematic, but I'll be long dead.

My great, great, great, great, great grandkids will be dead.

If I have to keep coming back to verify that, we got a problem.

So, okay, last question on this post about the fusion.

Brett Pope asks, I have a Rammcrete coffee table.

I sealed it with Protect a couple months ago.

What do I need to do to add a coat of fusion?

Well, again, you wouldn't be adding a coat.

Jon, he wants to put a coat of this topical sealer over the Protect.

What does he need to do, Jon?

Yeah, mix it up, put it in a spray bottle, and then use your roller and continue to roll the surface until you hopefully push past any amount of sealer that's locked up, get it to darken, and then run your torch.

I mean, let that dry, run your torch.

Again, so let's walk him back.

And I know I've repeated this if I didn't put some of the small nuances.

If, so let's just say you did do one, three, two, one, and Protect, right?

And you did run the torch.

And I've had this conversation many times with guys on the phone, and it's verbiage.

And I say, if we've all done it enough times, when I first put the sealer on, in this case we'll say Fusion, I start off by seeing this patchiness, these dark spots that all of us are very well known.

That's where it's absorbing.

What you want to do is you want to keep applying that first application of Fusion until the entire surface is absorbing.

Okay?

So if you have spots that are still quote unquote locked up, then you got to push past that lockup.

There's the issue where people are getting held up with this thing.

You got to push past the lockup.

Or you cut back your first and don't lock it up so much, one or the other.

But if the surface is still locked up to the point that, hey, look, I applied this Fusion and it didn't darken at all, and then I let it dry and then I ran the torch, well, you'll have a hard shell, but you're not going to have the performance characteristics, all the resistances that it was built for.

That's the reality.

Yeah, so the takeaway is don't lock up the concrete with Protect as we've all been doing.

Correct.

Just get an initial application and then come back with the Fusion.

And then come back with the Fusion.

Yeah, when it is still, you know, when all the silicates are still active, and like I said, now we're going to use that silicate hydrophilic characteristic for all the benefits that we want it to do, and that is to suck that sealer in deep, and then we're going to catalyze it in the pore structure.

We're going to lock all the mineral-based reactions to the concrete.

So again, so six months, a year from now, all that transition into a glass-like substrate still happens.

But now we are getting it to happen without having to supersaturate the concrete, hence prolonging that period of time where setting things on creates the darkening effect or the hydrophilic-silicate-based effect.

Yes, that's the idea.

I've never called it that.

Yeah, the hydrophilic-silicate-darkening effect.

That's right.

Say that five times fast.

So, so I mean, I just say, so having this conversation, I hope that clears up more.

I know it certainly has for guys that I've done tech support with and we've gone back.

But, you know, it becomes a bummer on my end when, again, what are there?

My own language, again, take it on my own shoulder is when this came out, you saw, hey, there's an A and a B.

Hey, look, you know, Jon came out with a coding.

Well, hold on.

I'll take responsibility because that's how I presented it in the early podcast.

I talked about Fusion and that was me not fully understanding, but I communicated it incorrectly.

And that's my fault.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, it's all good.

But what I'm saying is I put that language out there and I think that got people's, you know, they're subconscious and now they're viewing it that way.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

And as soon as the, you know, everybody has broke past that, Phil Courtney being one, tremendous Phil's early help with this.

And, you know, even with me, like, oh, that's not the way I understood it.

Okay, man, let's do it this way.

You know, now Phil posted that, you know, tell me you live in a wild weather environment without telling me you live in a wild weather environment.

And he's showing where, you know, his tables and everything has slid around on this deck because the winds were so high.

But the key to that was, is these are covered in ice and snow and da da da da.

Then there is, you know, the surface quality is amazing.

And that's what he uses, you know, the fusion on this project.

And that's, yes, that is what this product is meant for.

So just for this, the water is not getting in, it's not freezing, you're not getting the freeze-thaw characteristics.

You know, that's what this was built for, is all of these kind of situations.

And then our business, fast turnarounds, we all want to do that, you know?

I know we're not supposed to, and this has been the going, you know, thing for all of us.

You're not going to apply Omega in the morning and install Omega that afternoon.

We all know why, and that doesn't make it a bad product.

I'm just saying, we all know why, but we want to, you know what I mean?

We want to, and sometimes we need to, and that is, on the last project, what I did.

They got sealed that morning.

We were living, leaving for holiday, that most people know I was taking off for the vacation, and I'm sorry, it was delivered.

Three hours later, and set in place and used.

And now I have something with the confidence to handle that.

Yeah, you know what I wished I would have had this for?

I did sinks for a restaurant for Maddie Matheson, who's this celebrity chef, and I shipped them up there.

And what I've always disliked about ICT is the darkening in high use environments like that.

Now in a normal house, a normal sink, people wash their hands, the sink has time to dry, fine.

But in a restaurant, from the time they open up to the time they close, that sink stays soaking wet.

And the old-school ICT without the fusion over time would darken.

And there's just no way to get around it.

It just was what it was.

It didn't stain.

You were trying to overcome a characteristic of an ingredient that you are never going to overpower.

Never.

It's incredibly strong.

Yeah.

So it's one of the things that I'm looking forward to using this on future projects like that.

I'm going to use it on everything.

But what I'm saying is on future projects that are this really high demand, water constant, nonstop, seven days a week from 9 a.m.

till 2 a.m., you know, when they close, it just never has a chance to dry.

This is perfect for that.

And I'm excited about it.

Same.

I had a restaurant right here in town.

I've already contacted them.

So on their next, they don't shut down.

They go seven days a week.

So on their next holiday, I'm going to go into that sink and rejuvenate it.

And yeah, and Fusion is going to be my number one to go in there for the same reason.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So do we want to talk about Mat Max?

I'm excited about it.

I mean, I'm already using it, so I'm super excited about it.

And I have it in the hands of, well, I don't think it's in their hands yet.

Joshua Bowe, I think, just hit me on some.

But yeah, let's talk about it.

I think it's awesome.

Give me the three minute synopsis of Mat Max.

What is it?

Why do you want to use it?

What benefit does it offer?

I want to be able to control the sheen, lowering the sheen, creating a matte effect, going even so far to create, putting the sealer on so it just looks raw.

But at the same time, the one thing I've again been very unhappy, again, this is a Jon Schuler thing, and I don't mind putting it out there for everybody.

Satin, I really like satin.

For what satin accomplish.

What I hate about satin is, and I've gone through the Gambit, Evonik, BASF, Munzing, everything.

The matting agents that are available end up, regardless of what the chemistry is, as hard settling into a cake when the product is stored.

And there's no getting around it.

I mean, it's great for a while, but over time, that's what it does.

And then you're shaking it up, and then it gets clumpy, and then it's just a pain in the butt.

So it's something I have been diligently trying to overcome, not just because of the settling effect, is I myself, I like the lower sheens.

But more importantly to that, is trying to bring a product that's easy to apply, doesn't change anything, and then if possible, ends up adding things to the finish, like creates even softer feel, increase hardness and wear even further.

And so what is Mat Max doing?

Mat Max is going to be a scene control additive, because it's already in a liquid form.

I made sure that I didn't want to powder into a liquid form, and we will add it between 1% and 6% on total.

So again, if you mix up 200 grams of sealer, then put eight grams in and you'll be at 4%.

And then we will have control over what sheen we put on our products.

And at the same time, seal, you're going to increase this incredible soft feel to it, increase total wear resistance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's a very, I mean, I'm pretty pumped.

Again, a very novel approach to all this with aluminum oxides.

And it's pretty cool, man.

It is really cool.

Awesome.

And people can control it, which maybe you hit that.

I'm scrolling on some stuff right now, but you have control.

Yeah.

Other benefit of matte, and you've talked about this a lot, is just perceived durability.

It's not that a glossy surface is any less durable, but it shows any scuffs and scratches that you don't see on a matte surface.

So it's perceived durability.

Yeah.

I think I told everybody on the, I mean, right now I was running at 2% loading.

I just bumped up to 3% loading on a piece that I just did.

It's beautiful.

And now I'm actually looking at the 5 and 6%.

And again, not just for machine.

I want to make sure that at those loadings, it doesn't become more difficult to apply.

But so far it hasn't shown me that at all.

I'm going to do 7%.

I'm going, Jon, I know the label says 1 to 6, but I put 60.

Dude, you remember, I think it was Something About Mary.

Remember way back in the day, 8 Minute Abs?

Oh yeah, yeah.

And then I think it was the movie Something About Mary, where the hitchhiker picks up.

He's like, I got this brilliant idea.

He's like, you know, 8 Minute Abs?

She's like, I'm going to do 7 Minute Abs.

And Ben Stiller is like, but what about when somebody comes out with 6 Minute Abs?

And the guy is like, no, man, no, 7, 7-11, 7 little chipmunks sitting on a tree.

Anyways, that's always stuck in my head where the guy is like, I'll do 7 and Ben Stiller is like, what about 6?

That's funny.

No, I get it.

At some point, you know, there's, then there'll be too much in solutions.

I think, I mean, and besides that, there becomes a bang for buck, you know, you can keep loading it and you're not going to get anything else.

And I think that tipping point is actually going to be closer to 5%.

To be honest with you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's like pigment Maker Mix.

Anything beyond 3% is negligible at best, but it costs so much more and it adds issues.

The more pigment you put in, the more it affects your water and plasticizer.

And yeah, so anything beyond 3% is just kind of, in my opinion, a waste.

But that's pigment, pigment.

All right.

So I'm going to hit it one more time before we wrap this up.

The Basics Fundamental Concrete Workshop, February 1st and 2nd, Goddard, Kansas.

This is the beginner class, the first step on your journey of concrete.

Go to concretedesignschool.com.

It's a Saturday, Sunday workshop.

We finish up at noon on Sunday.

You can catch your flight home.

Be back to work on Monday.

So check it out.

I hope to see you there.

Anything before we go, Jon?

No, that's it, man.

That's awesome.

All right, I gotta get to work.

All right, buddy.

Till next week.

Adios, amigo.

Adios.