Mastering Pigments, Troubleshooting Aggregates, and Embracing Wabi-Sabi in Concrete Design

Step into the world of concrete artistry with this week’s episode of The Concrete Podcast. Together, we’ll uncover the secrets to maximizing the beauty and impact of super pigments in your projects, addressing common challenges with decorative aggregates, and bringing new life to a 20-year-old countertop ready for resealing.

We’ll also take a moment to spotlight the groundbreaking Neverest Concrete Athlete Design Competition and how it’s inspiring creators to push boundaries. Finally, we explore the timeless philosophy of wabi-sabi and its role in design exercises that celebrate imperfections as part of the story. If you're ready to level up your craft, this episode has your name on it.

Upcoming Workshops:

• RammCrete Workshop: January 11th–12th in Goddard, KS
• Basics Fundamentals Workshop: February 1st–2nd in Goddard, KS. Register now at Concrete Design School!

 

#ConcreteCrafting #PigmentMastery #DecorativeConcrete #AggregateDesign #WabiSabi #DesignInspiration #SelfDevelopment #NeverestCompetition #ConcreteInnovation

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello Jon Schuler.

Hello, Brandon Gore.

Now we're back again.

Here we are.

We are back again.

Tuesday, December 10th, 2024 We are here doing another episode of The Concrete Podcast.

I have a list of things here that we need to hit before we do that.

0:34

I'm just going to very quickly hit RammCrete Workshop January 11th and 12th.

I think we have 5 or 6 people registered now for it.

We launched it a week ago so that's going to be a lot of fun yeah and then we have a Basics fundamentals workshop coming up February 1st and 2nd.

0:51

Both those classes are held at my shop here in Goddard, KS.

If you want to learn more or register, go to concretedesignschool.com.

So just want to get that out of the way, but I have a list of things here.

Well.

Hang on, before we go any further, those people who might be listening, I'm, I'm thinking most people know what RammCrete is by now, but some very, very cool projects that guys are sharing.

1:12

Brett Pope.

I don't know.

I, I think it's cool the coffee tables that he's been doing and then damn it, I'm going to feel like an idiot right now.

Who's in Texas?

He did a really, really cool coffee table and a lamp.

1:28

Well, Wade's doing a lot of stuff in Texas with RammCrete.

Is that who you're talking about?

Oh no, you're talking about Marfa Cementworks.

Yes, yes, yes, that's it.

Oh dude, that lamp is awesome.

Awesome lamp.

I would put that in my house in a second.

It is really nice.

1:44

Yeah, and I don't, I mean, I just saw it on a like an Instagram daily.

Do you see the one where he did the lamp?

Are you me right now?

No.

Did you just say that?

Because I was.

I was thinking about the coffee table.

2:00

I don't know dude, it's like Groundhog Day sometimes.

Right.

Didn't we just talk about this lamp literally 30 seconds ago?

Yeah, no, it's sweet.

So anybody, man, go check out that stuff.

It's it's it's, I don't know, man, it's it's so cool.

2:18

I hate to just to see something new, you know what I mean?

Something new, new designs, new looks kind of like I think how we all felt when like the whole everybody, like everybody and their brothers were spraying things.

Oh my God, look, we can make the concrete look like this and it seems so cool.

2:35

And now we're like, but the RammCrete dude, it's that's awesome.

I think it's really awesome what people are doing with it.

Yeah, well, the cool thing about RammCrete is it's, it's tactile aesthetic, You know, it's, it's really.

Authentic.

Yeah, it's real.

2:51

It's a real thing and it's imperfect.

It's impossible to control in the sense of the chaos of it is what makes it beautiful.

You know, real stone, real wood, RammCrete.

It has that aesthetic that can't be replicated by a machine.

So I think that's why people are really responding to it.

3:08

And architects and designers, like I said, I 90% of the interest I get these days are architects and designers interested in rammed earth and rammed earth aesthetic things.

So you know, when, when they call me up, they find me with rammed earth and then we start talking about it and they're like, well, how thin can we go?

3:24

I'm like, well, I actually use a UHPC to create the rammed earth aesthetic, but we can go 1 inch like, Oh my God, you know, and it blows her mind.

So there's so much interest in that look.

And so the people that are doing it, you know, good for them.

They jumped on their early adopters and they're, they're carving out that niche in our market.

3:44

I'd highly recommend, if you're listening, check it out, go to concrete design school, register for that class.

It's coming up four weeks.

Yeah, four weeks from now, exactly 4 weeks.

So it's coming up in a month.

So you have plenty of time to, to book your travel, but far enough out that it's going to be low cost and it's not expensive traveling to Kansas anyways.

4:02

That's the other good thing is, you know, we do classes in Napa, but we have to be very careful about when we set those because Napa is so expensive.

One day off and room rates could be $1000 a night.

You know, that's happened where I was like, I'll stay another day.

You know, it's 150 a night.

4:17

And then the next they're like, oh, well, if you stay Saturday, it's 1000 a night.

What?

Yeah, it's 150 on Thursday, but if it's decided to stay Friday, yeah, it's, it's crazy.

So.

But Kansas, we don't have that problem.

So, you know, it's, it's an affordable place to come and we're dead central.

4:33

The other good thing about Kansas as far as training goes is we are literally, if you look at Wichita, KS on the map, we are the dead centre of the United States.

There's no other place in the country that is more centralized in Wichita, KS.

So it's, it's going to be the shortest distance for pretty much anybody, no matter where you're coming from because it's right dead centre of the country.

4:54

So it's a, it's a great place for training.

And the airport code is ICT, which is, you know, when, when I first learned, I was like, oh, it's a sign from God, man, I got to go there.

ICT.

Are you, are you kidding me?

And all over town, all the T-shirts and signs say I heart ICT.

5:09

I'm like, they get it, man.

They, they know what ICT is, They know what's up.

So.

Yeah, that's funny.

Yep, Yep, Yep.

Well, let's just jump into this, man.

I got stuff to do today.

One of the things I got to do is I photographed those pads I sent.

5:25

I I can't talk.

You sent them to me.

I got them yesterday the new Diamond pads and just to clarify because we talked about it, but I don't think we've really made the distinction.

We have paid for tooling to create pads for various manufacturers.

5:43

It's not one pad fits all.

It's a pad that fits A6 inch Bosch or 6 inch market.

Those two are the same.

It's a pad that fits A6 inch Fest tool.

It's a pad that fits A6 inch Dyna braid and we have a pad that fits A5 inch Fest tool.

And those are all different hole patterns.

5:59

And so we had tooling dies made for the for the pads.

So these are independent or very distinct hole patterns, but we've manufactured these.

We have them in stock now.

I photographed them this morning.

I'm going to get a load them on the website and you can go purchase those.

We also have a promotion going right now from now until the end of the month.

6:19

And some people have already taken advantage of it.

If you buy 2 pallets of Maker Mix or Rad Mix, we'll send you a free set of pads, which is a $225.00 value and you can choose which manufacturer you want.

If you want to order more than two pallets, sometimes people need four or five pallets.

6:36

Order 4 pallets, we'll send you 2 sets of pads that's 450 bucks.

So that's good from now until December 31st and just place your order on the website and we'll follow up with you and and find out what pads you want and get them in the mail to you so.

I know we talked about this before, but wouldn't it be nice if all I mean what?

6:53

There's a side of me that goes really the guys from Bosch had to make a totally different hole pattern backer than Festool.

Well, they did because they sell their own sandpaper and you know, the tool is a one time expense, but they really make their money on the consumables, you know, Festool, the the bags, the vacuum bags for their dust extractors.

7:13

We’ll see, I thought everybody's using the abernet, the mesh style.

So you know those goes on any pad.

But that came out to kind of combat all this.

I think the abernets.

But the problem with abernet with stone or concrete is it just wears out so fast.

You know, it's not really made for that use.

7:31

So they clog up quick and they wear out fast.

Whereas these diamond pads are specifically for stone and concrete.

So they're very long lasting.

The benefit to these and the people that are using them can attest to this is before you'd go through two or three boxes of very expensive abrasives with concrete and stone.

7:49

Now you can have one set of pads and it'll last you for many projects.

So it's.

Way more cost, incredibly durable.

They really are.

And that's just not me, you know, like, oh, OK, you guys are just no guys, I'm telling you, man, these have designed around the durability and the guys that no, no, because we took feedback directly from them and said, hey, man, they felt like those one 20s I thought they were.

8:12

They felt like they wear it out a little bit quicker than what I like to see.

I'm like, really?

OK, so I had them all redesigned and sent them some.

They're like, OK, no, that's sweet.

That's working great.

So thank you everybody for your feedback.

But these are incredibly durable pads, very durable.

8:28

Good, Jon, I'm glad.

As you should be.

I am because I use them all the time.

Well, I'm excited, I'm excited.

See, I I'm not using them.

I talk to people that use them.

I talk to people who use them and they love them.

You know, it's like, Oh my God, these pads are great, great.

But I have a 5 inch fest tool and we had 6 inch Festool pads.

8:48

So I was like, am I going to buy a six inch Festool?

I don't know Shoemaker with no shoes.

Right, I know, but now we have a 5 inch Festool.

I mean today I I have them so I can actually start using them, which I'm excited about because there's a lot of instances where it'd be really nice to have dust extraction.

I'm in a shop space.

9:03

It's winter time.

I have the garage door shut.

I have a mini split.

You know, I have filters on it, but I don't want dust in my shop as much as I can keep the dust down, the better.

So to be able to, to do any type of processing they need to do with dust extraction, game changer.

9:19

I mean, that is so good in a space where you don't want dust and, and you know, and then back to the whole silicosis thing.

That's a big issue, especially in Europe and Australia and becoming more of an issue in the United States.

I think this is going to be a, a problem solver for a lot of people that need to process pieces but need to to mitigate dust.

9:37

So.

Well, and it's great to see the the other main reason for this is guys doing again, whether we're talking stone or concrete is the reseals.

The reseals, Mike Wellman, we got to get him on, he's hit me quite a bit.

He's been doing quite a few projects.

9:53

I think he even posted a question here recently that we may talk about, but do using these in place with a vacuum, HEPA filters, etcetera, etcetera.

I mean, it makes it all possible.

We're not long ago most of us were going in with and again in someone's home.

10:10

It was a nightmare.

You know, solvent based strippers and or you know, all these other choices to try to reseal someone's top or, or fix a blemish in, you know, in some stone of some sort.

And it just so I'm, I'm very both proud and happy that we moved forward with working with a company and designing something that did was not available before or at least I never found them, that's for sure.

10:39

Yeah, well, I guess I have a list here, but that is actually on my list of questions, so we might as well knock it out since we're talking about it.

Jon Bass asked on the Kodiak Pro discussion page on Facebook.

Is anybody using the Kodiak Pro Diamond pads to process their concrete versus because everybody moved away from sandpaper.

11:01

Let me find it.

I'll read it exact because I'm kind of bastardizing it, I think.

Let me find this question.

Let's see.

Jon Bass, Where's it at?

No, I just found it.

No, it's on the concrete and tile.

11:17

Oh, is it?

No, let me go to that one then.

Yeah, that's why I couldn't find it.

OK, well, you read it.

I don't even see it yet.

Oh, really?

It's.

Oh, here it is.

OK, Jon.

Podcast.

It's like the 4th one down.

Yeah, I know what processing is the prescribed method for processing pieces not dry with basic sandpaper.

11:38

Is anyone using the dry diamond pads from Kodiak Pro for after casting processing?

What's been your feedback, Jon?

Well, I do for everything, but I'm doing upright casting.

Will it work with a smooth finish precast?

11:56

I, I think that's what he's really asking versus going straight to wet processing.

The easiest way to answer that question is it just depends on how much processing you're trying to achieve.

These were not designed to take the place of wet processing.

12:12

I mean, I think that's still kind of the gold standard if you really want stock removal.

But on on my precast pieces, what I'll do is acid wash as my processing because I don't do, I mean, I, I don't have any projects where I need to do wet diamonds on them.

12:29

And then then I'll use these pads after.

In other words, I'm letting the acid do my stock removal and then I'm using these pads after to smooth everything out for the rest of the stock removal.

And then they work great.

What I'm hearing from most people is they're using these for in the field work.

12:48

That's really where a lot of people are using the diamond pads, but you know, for people that use diamonds for, for processing their concrete, which I'm sure there's a lot of people doing that.

It depends on the look you're going for then.

Yeah, it'd work totally fine.

Especially like I said, in a space like mine that you're trying to keep dust down.

I nobody likes water polishing in the winter time.

13:06

It's a miserable thing.

Even in a heated chop.

It's like it puts that fine mist of, of water in the air.

It gets in your clothes, you get all soggy, you know?

Yeah, the rest of the IT always feels like it's bone chilling for the rest of the day.

Yeah, I never I've never enjoyed water polishing.

13:22

I don't enjoy it in the summertime.

I don't enjoy it in the winter time.

Water polishing sucks.

I mean it sucks.

So I try to not do it as much as I can.

So if I did need to use it then or diamond pads, then be able to hook it up to the festool, turn on dust extraction, not use water and to contain the dust.

13:41

It's a win win, win.

So.

Yeah, that's what I talked about.

Just I think a couple podcasts back, but the last vanity I did, which specifically for this looked had some pretty good voids and stuff in it.

So this one needed to be slurried and yeah man, it was just it was so nice.

13:57

So I acid process like I just said to open the surface up, which gave me all the voids and stuff, open them all up and then came in, did a fairly standard heavy slurry, you know, like icing a cake kind of thing to really fill everything up.

14:12

Did that a few times, even with the using the scrapers in between.

And then I just came back with these dry sanding pad with a 120 and just went over the whole thing, cleaned it all up, man, left no residue everywhere.

It was it was brilliant.

I'm very very happy with them and I use them a lot.

14:29

Nice.

Well, we have a question that I thought was an interesting question that popped up about blue pigment.

This is from Kevin Gerstner and he has a big project and he needs to use blue pigment.

And he was asking, he typically uses cobalt, which he heard is more stable.

14:46

But is there much of a difference between ultra blue and cobalt blue?

You want to answer that?

Yeah, and the easiest, absolutely, Absolutely.

It was proven time and time again, all the way back to the blue concrete days, because of cost, a lot of people would get the Ultramarine or the Ultra Blue.

15:07

And the first things we were getting back from people is again, let's say a vanity.

They cast a vanity.

It was supposed to come out blue and instead it looked like a big bullseye.

The center of the vanity top was a very, very light, almost like you couldn't tell it was blue.

15:24

And then a little further out was a little more radiance and then around all the edges a little more blue.

And so we ended up putting on heat stability tests and yeah, the Ultramarine is not heat stable at all.

And also and say thing whether call it UV dependent or not, but I'll just say over time it fades.

15:45

There's no question about it.

It doesn't handle those kind of things.

So the absolute stable one is the cobalt and it is what it is.

And I've actually I did talk to him because he's doing quite a bit with bold colors for a city project that he's doing sounds like a really cool project.

16:05

So just remember, even with those just atom later in your mix cycle, that again will increase the boldness.

The cobalt doesn't have aph sensitivity as much as the ultra.

But again, I would still recommend add it later in your mix cycle.

16:21

And then if you need to continue to pop the colors in that case, I don't want to throw it out here for everybody, just Kevin or anybody else, give us a call.

And there are some little tricks you can do and little additions that you can do to the mix to even increase the strength of it.

16:39

But I wouldn't, I, I wouldn't lower the loading.

That's not where I'm going with it.

But he to increase the overall durability in his case is going in an outdoor, like I said, kind of a a city project kind of thing.

So yeah, I would throw some stuff at him.

Yeah, man.

16:54

No synthetic pigments.

I remember I heard Jeremy French told me a story.

You were with Blue back then when this happened, but there was a contractor that had ordered blue pigment to do a pool and they did samples.

17:12

It was a custom color.

They did samples.

They worked fine.

They they made the pigment, they sent it to the guy.

He did the pool.

It was purple, like completely purple.

And they went out there.

I don't know if you went out there, but I know Jeremy went out there and it turned out it had to do with when he loaded it into the mix, it changed the color.

17:32

It was crazy.

But that's how finicky those synthetic pigments are.

And yeah, it was just, it was when it was loaded, it affected the color and it he said.

You know, had had they not seen it first hand, they never would have believed that would happen, but it happened.

Oh no, we learned with all of that.

17:48

So you know, any of those any, and that's where I would call them super pigments.

I, I call any of this, you know, bolder ones coming out of the Super pigment line.

And not long ago, if anybody remembers, we kind of went full-fledged and just made this a standard rule regardless.

18:04

So people didn't have to try to distinguish like, oh, well, I didn't know.

I didn't because they ordered this pigment, whatever color from somebody and they didn't know it had X amount of super pigment in.

And so it didn't work.

So that's where we've changed and recommend everybody to load your pigments later in the mix cycle regardless, just get used to doing it.

18:26

And then that kind of creates a rule regardless of which pigment because he was telling me that he's, you know, doing some of these kind of bright violets and bright Reds and and in this case bright Blues.

And so right off the bat, yeah, get them later in your mix cycle.

18:43

All those are going to have surfactant technology which can turn your stuff into foam Cree.

They're they have pH issues, you know, so they're not mixed too long and then heat stability issues through the curing process.

So a lot of those things can be minimized, believe it or not, just from where you put them in, in them in your mix cycle.

19:04

Don't put them up front, put them later either pre slake or definitely post slake.

And then just make sure you mix in till everything's completely homogeneous.

Yeah, which can be tricky with some of those because you'll end up with these hot spots where they didn't completely mix and you know.

19:23

Right.

Yeah, that's why for me it's late, but definitely pre slake, let it sit for a minute and then spend a good substantial post slake, make sure everything's mixed in very well.

Yeah, good point, Jon.

Well, we brought up Mike Wellman, his question, but let's go ahead and talk about that.

19:41

He posted a photo of a countertop and his question was he has a 20 year old reseal to do.

Clients had taken to adding some kind of oil to get rid of acid spots.

Any advice for removing lots of oil from concrete countertops?

19:56

And then in the comments he clarified that the countertops been sealed 20 years ago with like a silane, siloxane sealer, whatever he's using 20 years ago.

I'm trying to find that comment that he made that but a lot of interesting.

20:13

Responses from people, one of them was to use easy off oven cleaner was one response.

Some people talked about the poultice of acetone and baking soda, You know to try to pull it out, Epoxy remover, acetone wash, muriatic acid.

20:34

What are what are your thoughts on how to get that out?

Well, I'm going to base.

I mean, I have no idea.

I'm looking through it right now, so I have no idea how much experience some of these people throwing answers out there have done.

But I can tell you I've done plenty of these, plenty of these.

20:51

And so for me #1 regardless of the old sealer, I take the diamond pads that we just talked about and I just clean up the whole top, you know, all all the way around.

And even though this he's saying it's a silence lock saying So what?

21:07

Just open up the surface.

You're going to see pretty quickly as long as you can spray some water to that concrete and it instantly darkens and it won't take much.

You you're going to pull any of that.

Anything beyond that that's still in the concrete.

21:23

Now it just depends what you're going to be using for a reseal.

So I'll get into that as a moment.

Meaning what kind of sealer.

So for me, that's all we do.

The oil.

Yeah, I mean, I've seen, gosh, so much of this where it was either oil or, or they melted waxes or whatever the case may be.

21:40

And I'm going to tell you it was a no brainer once you cleaned off the old sealer.

Then I pulled out the utility torch, you know, the 50,000 BTU utility torch.

I run over the surface, it does one or two things, either draws the oil right to the top and I just kept wiping it off or it drives it deeper.

21:58

Absolutely not a problem.

In other words, the countertops never looked oily, patchy, you know, before I started to reseal.

And then a key tip that I found for me was now I put a little bit of tinting to the sealer as I reapply, which creates an evenness to the color across the board.

22:19

And usually it's black, you know, and not very much like 1%, you know, 1% of which ever dilution I'm starting with, I put a little bit of black in there that creates an evenness.

So if I couldn't get the oil out or you know, as much of it as I would have liked to, who cares?

22:36

It evens out the color, it seals up nicely.

But again, these are and I should have said this, this is everything I know resealing with ICT.

I've resealed silane siloxane countertops in far worse shape than what he's describing that I actually had to go back into where spots and and slurry them and fill a lot of the even some of the more, let's say popular name brands that were mega failures, you know, same.

23:05

Sand them out, pull them off, take the torch over the surface, remove the oil or wherever the sealer had been damaged and just reseal and with a little bit of tint.

A little bit of tint cleans up everything.

Yeah, well, Wellman has a new set of Bosch Kodiak Pro pads, so yeah, that'll work.

23:25

Good on going over these.

What do you think about Easy oven cleaner?

What do you think about that?

I've never had anybody.

Doing that, I don't.

All I can say is I haven't tried.

I I don't know.

I mean it's caustic, so I don't know how much I want to use that on countertops.

23:43

I guess what I'm saying is from my point of view, because then you could say something like brake cleaner.

You know what I mean, right?

Why not spray some brake cleaner on those spots?

My concern would be, and again, I have not done it, so maybe who made that comment?

23:59

Maybe they can go like, Oh no, that's exactly what I do and it works great.

My concern would be using some of those kind of, again, I hate to call them harsh for, but for me, harsher ways of using any versions of solvents or any of that kind of jazz is it's now going to take the opposite and create an unevenness to the concrete.

24:23

You know what I mean?

Like bleach spots, you know, here you have this countertop that in general is 20 plus years old.

I'm sure it has some amount of probably pretty cool patina that's come to it over the years.

You know what I mean?

Just from using the surfaces and those oil spots, they're again, they're, I guess what I'm saying, they're not going to be super dark spots.

24:47

So now if I come in with these pulsaces and brake cleaners or oven cleaners or whatever and you go, man, that's awesome.

Now I created this bleach spot that takes away from that 20 years worth of, you know, natural change in the concrete.

25:06

I don't know.

That would be my concern.

Yeah, maybe it's brilliant.

I, I have a hard time believing that.

I, I know the torch is simple.

It's a very, very simple technique and it works amazing and it helps create a far more natural evenness to these older surfaces than than any kind of cleaners or anything that I've that I ever had even thought of using.

25:31

Got you.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Well, the patina of time, you know, my countertops in my house, I sealed them with ICT PS1 ish.

It was in that time frame.

You're still doing PS1 and they still look great.

25:47

You know, I mean, there's really, there's a little bit of patina around the stove where, you know, you're frying bacon and things and it's splattering grease, but it's not stained.

It's just a little bit darker in those areas where it gets cost and exposure, but they look great.

But we're going with this is Pierre Freau.

26:03

Is his name Freau Freau FREAU.

He's in San Francisco.

His company is Stoneman Concrete.

But he had a house in France, in Montpellier, France, Beautiful house.

It was a barn that they turned into a modern house.

26:19

The barn was like 500 years old or 1000 years old.

It was some ancient barn in France made of stone.

Beautiful, beautiful.

It blew my mind how incredible this was.

Old timber beams, thick walls.

26:35

He'd gone and had these custom steel windows and doors made all glass and steel and it was just incredible.

But he did concrete countertops and this was back, you know, he's a really big Buddy Rhodes guy back in the day.

So he was in San Francisco.

Buddy Rhodes is in San Francisco.

He, he used to help Buddy out.

26:51

So he really bought into the Buddy Rhodes system, which back then was a water based sealer in beeswax, you know, and he sealed his countertops with it, waxed them.

It didn't hold up worth of crap as far as resistance to stains.

27:07

But they use their kitchen, they use it heavily.

They cook heavily.

They, you know, I always joke at people like preparing directly on the countertop, not using cutting boards.

But he's one of those people that would just prepare everything directly on the countertop, chopped vegetables, you know, cut steak, whatever, right on the countertop.

27:24

And they developed this patina of use.

And it was beautiful.

Like when I went in this kitchen, it was incredible.

The warmth, the authenticity.

It didn't look, It wasn't like splotchy stains.

It was evenly patina at that point.

Yeah.

Over time, yeah.

27:40

It was beautiful and he was telling me that that was a very European and French mindset where they don't, they use their stuff and they don't sweat it and they just let it be what it is.

And because he wasn't freaking out about it and because he let it develop that patina over time, naturally it looked incredible.

27:57

I'm sure the first six months it looked like crap.

You know, you had a spot here, you know, a spot there and you're like, oh, this doesn't look good.

But over time it evened out and over time it became beautiful.

And then it was really at that point a, a no maintenance thing.

You know, they clean the countertops when you're done cooking.

They didn't care and it was beautiful.

28:14

So I guess that's the other mindset is, you know, but you're going to do reseal.

But yeah, let it be what it was.

Let it let it it developed us over time, kind of let it let it embrace that character.

So unless there's some substantial.

Analogy, I mean, not analogy.

I think I've told, you know, one of the tasting rooms I did out down here for Hatcher, that was the whole idea.

28:34

And I remember this is a kid going into the butcher shop and he was doing everything on marble, these huge slabs of marble.

And I don't know, man, they just, they were beautiful every, every mark and you know where over time and they were gorgeous.

28:52

It's I don't know if it's still over here in this barn out by my place.

But anyway, it was beautiful.

It was beautiful.

And I would do that in a heartbeat.

But I do believe there becomes a point with concrete in general where his maintenance needs to be at least something along the lines of densifying and hardening just so you don't get the erosion and you can maintain the surfaces without the erosion.

29:19

Yeah, OK.

So lot of lot of, again, this is I think things will continue to move this way towards authenticity because that still is very authentic to be able to do that.

But I guess that would be my only concern over time is especially if he was doing something during during that period of time with that particular mix would be, you know, continue to support the counters in a way that still allows them to age gracefully without the without them falling apart.

29:52

Yeah.

Well, that's a good segue to the next question that somebody had.

And we won't name the person's name on this one, but it was a good question and one that a lot of people maybe don't consider, but it's a consideration that you should think about.

So let me set the scene, Jon.

30:08

A person made some countertops and they put crushed oyster shells in the countertop.

And so they made, they made, I don't know if they used, did they use Kodiak Pro Maker Mix or another mix?

I don't even know.

Did they use maker mix?

I think they did use Maker, yeah, but in this case anyway, go ahead.

30:27

Yeah.

We'll use maker mix, which is a very dense mix.

That's important.

It's a very, very dense mix.

But then they put oyster shells in as a decorative aggregate.

They're going to Polish down and expose the oyster shells.

But oyster shells are very soft and they're made of calcium carbonate, but they're very soft material in comparison to the very dense UHPC, which is maker mix.

30:51

So they made this countertop and then they sealed it with Ovation topical sealer.

And I'll let you take it from here, but what problems do they have and what were the root issues, the problem?

And moving forward, how would you resolve those problems?

OK.

31:07

And sorry to just jump in here.

No, it was actually another product by that company that he sealed it with.

Wasn't coating what I thought it was?

What was the sealer then?

It was Omega.

Ovation is the yeah.

OK, I don't know.

I I know his O name, so.

OK, so he sealed it with Omega topical sealer.

31:24

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he had issues.

Yeah, he had issues and this is a hard one, right, because like he was Jon, do you think this is a sealer issue?

And I'm like, no.

So in this, there's going to be very, you know, there's situations where sealing technologies and I know there's a lot of them out there.

31:44

Again, the whole coatings versus hybrid versus penetrating etcetera, etcetera, there does become a point especially if you're doing things in higher exposures like Terrazzos, there needs to be a consideration from what's being exposed, right?

32:00

So you know, I'm thinking of sums like ice stone and the rest of them, they're using glass.

Well, glasses is hard, right?

It's, it's similar to silica sand in its hardness.

So in that case, you know, you're in, in this particular case when you happen to be exposing something that's softer than than the substrate itself.

32:23

A coding is, and I understand his philosophy.

His thought was, and I don't know if he was LED down this path or it was on his own thought is, you know, was the idea that to use the coding to to wrap, you know, to kind of wrap the whole piece.

32:39

And that's not a bad thought, but the difficulty in this situation with the coating is the coatings now going to be on something that's hard and durable and at the same time on something soft.

So as wear or any kind of abrasion and cleaners and stuff like this starts being used.

32:59

And this might not be the way to think about it, but you know, think about that sealer is going to have these areas where it's essentially bonded to something very soft and it's going to start giving way.

And over time, what'll happen is just like in this situation is those, let's call now a softer aggregate because that's really what we're using it now.

33:22

That softer aggregate will start wearing down and then the concrete will start sitting proud of those spots.

And that's a bummer man, because the only way to smooth, and he did he grind these all beautifully smooth to begin with, is the only way to go in there and fix that would be to come in and grind everything smooth again and then reseal it.

33:47

But again, a coating would not be a good choice under this circumstance, a good choice for me.

And this is what I'm suggesting to him when first of all, to run a densifier and try to get that carbonate, let's call it a carbonate based aggregate, as hard as you possibly can.

34:05

It's still a carbonate.

It still is what it is, but at least if you densify it, get some silica technology and colloidal built into it, you're going to harden it.

And then at the same time, I would be sealing it with something that had some kind of, you know, densifying or hardening properties to it, not just coding properties.

34:25

So that would be the and in this case, there's undeniable.

I would finish it off with the fusion because now we're going to take it to that NEP step and basically catalyze everything and then melt it all together into a single object.

34:41

That's so that would be my choice.

But prior to Fusion, I would say again, it needs to be a densifying base technology to harden that very soft aggregate and prevent that wear a coatings just not going to do it.

Yeah.

So at this point, what should he do?

34:58

Well, at this point, at least for the one in place, his choice is if he wants to smooth it out again.

No, he's going to have to pull diamonds and grind everything down smooth and then reseal.

That's the only choice.

Or I guess what you could, if you don't want that in this case, those oyster shells showing, well, sure, you could slurry it all in, you know what I mean?

35:19

And then smooth it all out again and then reseal it.

But then he's going to, he's going to lose all that beautiful aggregate that he put in there for the right reasons.

So that's the only choice.

And then moving forward if he's going to continue to do these kind of projects.

So it sounds like they're pretty popular in his area.

35:36

Man, that's awesome.

But a coding technology, I would advise.

Well, let me take that back.

Here's your choices.

It either has to be something very high billed, which is going to be soft, right?

Like again, this would be a situation if you're like, well, no, you need a very high build.

35:55

Well that would be a heavy build, polyaspartic or an epoxy.

But bear in mind that same thing with the wear.

It's going to end up looking scratchy over time and difficult to maintain.

Or choice 2 would be do your best to harden these softer aggregates, get them as hard as you possibly can to prevent the wear, and then seal with something that kind of, you know, moves with that hardening and stain resistance all at the same time.

36:24

That would be my choice.

So to harden these, would you soak them in a bucket with ICT or would you just missed them with ICT continuously several times?

What would you do?

No, that's actually a good idea.

I know, I would just you'd soak them in a densifier.

But pretty quickly.

36:40

Wouldn't.

It start to catalyze that sealer, Would it would it reduce its effectiveness if you just put it all in there together?

Well, it would just.

It would ultimately just create a sludge.

Yeah.

So how long would you put it in overnight and then just toss the sealer?

You know what?

They soaked it in.

Yeah, you'd have to.

36:56

But no, that's what I'm saying with the sealers, because of the way they react with minerals and everything.

No, I I think that would be a pain in the butt.

I mean, and you'd pull these things out with this like hard sludge all over them.

No, I think a better choice if you wanted to do that would just soak them into a water based densifier.

37:14

I would probably have some kind of combination with, you know, some kind of ion attachment and then a pure colloidal.

That's what I.

What the hell does that even mean?

I'm your partner and I have no idea what you're talking about.

Oh, so anyway, densifiers can be potassium, sodium based lithium and then you have your pure colloidals that don't have a mineral ion attached to them or a very minimal amount attached to them.

37:40

So I've always found doing a combination and then combination based on again, this is gets all in the colloidal realm and they all have different sizes, you know, 4 nanometers, 8 to 1015 a hundred and and all of that changes based on what you.

37:57

So look around for a good densifier.

In this case, I just told him, give me a call man, I'll make you something.

It's not a problem.

So that's the direction I would go.

Soaking him is not a bad idea.

That would be pretty cool.

I wouldn't put very much in my water, maybe 5 or 10% and then soak it.

38:14

Let him harden.

And then once you, because in this case, soaking him is not going to get him to the inner core.

You know what I mean?

So once he starts grinding and exposing whatever gets opened up through the grinding process, you're going to want to densify that as well.

38:29

So densify do all that first and then make ceiling come in post densification.

Makes sense.

Cool.

All right, well, I got something that we should talk about that we forgot to talk about last week.

38:47

No, not Christmas.

The Grinch.

No, not the Grinch.

OK, the concrete athlete design competition from Never Rest Coffee, AKA Justin Bird.

He has this design competition he's going to host January 1st through the 30th and he posted it on the Kodiak Pro discussion page on Facebook.

39:10

So if you're not a member of that, join that, read about it.

But essentially it's a design competition, hybrid fitness challenge and it's a great time.

His ideas starting January 1st.

You know, we all aspire to to be healthier in the new year.

39:28

And so it's a good time to start this.

And so it's a daily workout.

You work out every day and you do that for 30 days.

And then at the end of 30 days, you enter your piece you've designed and it's judged winner takes all.

It's judged by the rest of the group, winner takes all.

39:45

So yeah, it seems really cool.

What are your thoughts?

No, I love it.

I think it's going to be awesome.

And he's already got a boatload of questions.

And so anybody listening, he's going to try to base all of the exercises or the daily activities so that a person doesn't have to have a membership at a, at a gym, you know what I mean, To use the hack squat machine or whatever the case may be.

40:08

Because the other part of this is indoor activities and outdoor activities.

I don't know what they are yet.

You know, he hasn't told us, but I do know he's very much into hiking and.

And biking and all that kind of jazz.

So I imagine some of these is going to just, you know, some simple ones just get your butt outside instead of being indoors the whole time.

40:29

And otherwise, I'm guessing most of them are going to be kind of body weight related, you know, exercise push ups or jump squats or whatever the case may be.

So no, I think it's super cool, man.

And I'm trying to wrap my head because most people don't know this, including myself.

40:46

I'm an amazing designer, so.

Yeah, you're an amazing product namer and an amazing designer, Jon.

Right.

Those are two of my undeniable strengths.

41:02

So I was trying to figure out, I was drawing up a, a beautiful box here the other day with four sides and about 6 inches tall.

And I think that's I'm really pushing my boundaries of design.

So that's going to be the tough part for me.

41:19

I'll do the push ups.

I mean, I'll do all that.

I look forward to the workouts.

I think they're going to be fun.

But yeah, but that's talking to Justin.

That's the point of this whole thing.

The point is, and I know you and I have talked about this a lot, is what are, you know, what are things that we all do that you don't do to get you outside your comfort zone?

41:44

You know what I mean?

Now, maybe it is about doing these workouts or maybe you've always had a thought on your mind of a certain, I don't know, a lamp or a widget or whatever that you keep putting off and you actually never move forward with it.

42:00

Yeah, that's what's great looking, you know, to people and do it.

So this is the time to do it.

Pull that thought that whatever you had off your brain shelf and make something cool and at the same time get inspired by, you know, getting active.

42:18

Yeah, yeah.

Well, we might be able to incorporate.

We've talked about a design a day.

It's something that I do occasionally.

It's been a while, but I need to do it.

Maybe this is the time to do it.

A design a day, get a blank page notebook, a moleskin or whatever.

42:34

Just go to Barnes and Noble, get a blank page notebook and everyday do a sketch of something.

It doesn't matter what it is.

I mean, that's really the beauty of it is you, you just design something concrete, cigar ash tray, a lamp, a parking barricade, a mailbox, whatever.

42:54

What I mean, you can just look around Starbucks and be like, oh, I could, I could do a, you know, whatever a pour over coffee stand out of concrete.

And so you just design something, you sketch it up and it does a couple things.

It, it, you know, it's, it's an exercise.

The more you exercise that part of your brain, the easier it becomes and the more creative you become just through the habit of doing it, but also increases your sketching ability by trying to get these things on paper.

43:20

Maybe you're like, why can't draw good?

Well, you're never going to draw good if that's your attitude.

So the more you do it, the better you'll get and you're able to convey it better.

So if you're in a meeting with an architect, a designer, a homeowner, you have an idea.

You're going to be better at being able to convey that idea to them by sketching it out.

43:36

But The thing is, through that process, if you do that for 30 days, every single day, you just make yourself do it just like the workouts, you know, you're just like, I'm going to do it, whatever, I'm going to do it.

You probably have some gold Nuggets in there at the end of that 30 days, some things that you had never considered, but you did it.

43:52

And you're like, man.

Good idea, man.

Yeah, this is.

I never would have thought of that, but man, I, I came up with this idea.

Maybe I want to pursue this.

So that's the other part of it is you.

You might be surprised at the end of the 30 days what you come up with and how that might transform what you're doing.

So I don't know that's.

44:08

A really good idea all together.

I mean, I'm sure Justin will be cool to it too.

It's not taking away from what he's doing.

But no, I love it.

I love it it also, I think it'd be a lot of fun.

You know, my stuff I'll have to AI just so they're really cool.

44:24

But seeing, seeing what people come up with, I think that would be a lot of fun.

Yeah, well, that's the last thing.

We got a few minutes left on this podcast.

AI, you posted a photo on the concrete countertop, concrete tile, concrete sink, concrete furniture page on Facebook of image of a concrete kitchen and it's concrete island, concrete walls, concrete vent hood, concrete floor, concrete table.

44:52

And you asked people their opinion of it.

What do you think about it, Jon?

I think taken for what it is, because I do like, I like brutalism, I like all that.

So taken from that point of view, I thought it was pretty cool.

45:12

But it doesn't take very long before it starts becoming very overwhelming, you know what I mean?

And so when when it's all done like that, there becomes a point you're like, OK, wait a minute, you know, something, some kind of wood and steel, you know, something else has to come in or it's just too much.

45:32

That's that was my opinion.

So I was very interested to hear people's thoughts because you can see where the AI at least, you know, tried to put like, I don't know, little splashes of movement on it or something.

But you know, anyway, what's your thoughts?

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing is my thought, and I'm guilty of it, and it's something that I've become better at over the years.

45:55

But I'm sitting here in my front office at my shop right now looking around.

In the last week, I made wooden shelves for some of the windows to put these rammed earth RammCrete color samples I made.

I made a bunch of different color samples, but also made some shelves to put plants in the windows.

46:15

And initially I was going to do concrete.

You know, those are my first thought was concrete.

Well, let me do some concrete floating shelves be really cool.

I can do these like hidden brackets and slide them over and they'll be floating concrete.

It'll be all trick.

But I already have concrete window sills.

I've concrete coffee table, I've concrete sink, I've concrete tile.

46:34

So very quickly I've concrete picture frames.

All the picture frames at my front office are cast concrete.

Very quickly.

You can overwhelm a space with material.

And so I did Aspen wood. Aspen if you ever saw Dumb and Dumber.

46:50

So I used Aspen wood and it's about a balance of materials.

And so it's it's the wood with the concrete, with the natural plants.

It's a balance.

And so I would say, yeah, it's a cool picture, the concrete, but had they just done the island in the countertops?

Awesome, but or just the?

47:06

Walls.

Yeah, but not pictures.

Just too much.

Too much, you know, when you think about like Donald Trump style, everything's gold plated.

Too much gold.

Donald toned down the gold a little bit.

You know, like.

Right.

It doesn't have to be all do.

Remember that?

And I, I couldn't do that.

47:22

They went through like one of his penthouse apartments or something like that, right.

And yeah, it was just crazy, crazy.

Just too much, too much of A, some cool stuff.

Then it was, yeah, it became very gaudy and crazy.

Yeah, so balance is everything.

There's a great book.

47:37

I read it years ago.

I have it on my bookshelf.

I need to read it again, called The Wabi Sabi House by man I'm I'm going off memory, but Robin Gribs Griggs, let me see while we're talking.

Let me just look it up because I don't want to mess it up.

47:56

Wabi Sabi House Robin Let me see what pops up here.

Robin Griggs I have good memory.

Griggs The Wabi Sabi House by Robin Griggs.

48:13

It's a great book and it really changed my perspective on design and aesthetics and I'd recommend anybody listen to this, pick it up.

It's a cheap book.

You know, you can buy it on Amazon for probably like 10 bucks.

It's a short read.

It's not a very big book, but it really has to do with the Japanese philosophy that imperfection is beauty and, and only have things in your space, in your home, in your office, whatever that are useful and that you find to be beautiful.

48:42

And if they don't meet that criteria, get rid of it.

And so it's, and I try to live by that.

You know, my house, it's more difficult.

I have 3 kids.

It's just a cluttered chaos most of the time of toys and whatever all over the place, right?

But in my shop, I'm always editing stuff out that I don't need.

48:59

I don't need this, I don't need that.

I'm just trying to remove things, only have things that are adding to the space, to add to happiness, to add to the quality of the environment and remove everything else.

So the Wabi Sabi house, it's worth a read.

If you haven't read it, pick it up.

Read it and it might change your perspective.

49:17

Cool man.

It is cool, Jon.

Well, wabi sabi.

Wabi sabi, which, you know, came like a catch phrase a few a few years back.

Wabi sabi.

Yeah, it's only going to be a matter of time.

Watching something when people would walk into the house and you know it would get it was on some show or something.

49:37

Oh my God, I mean HGTV.

Everything wabi sabi.

Yeah, HGTV again.

Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

When Sugi Bond became a thing, which isn't even the correct term, I remember I watched this Japanese builder talking about how Americans referred to that charred woods, Shou Sugi Ban, and that's actually not even what it's called.

49:55

That was a miss, a misinterpretation of what the material was.

But Shou Sugi Ban is just cedar that's charred, and then this mixture of oils are applied to it.

And it is a traditional Japanese technique for cladding and exterior of a house to make it insect repellent, to make it more resistant to fire.

50:13

It's beautiful, but Americans took it and they ran with it.

And too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

So every HGTV show I watch is like, we're going to do this technique.

It's called Shou Sugi Ban.

It's, you know, very innovative way of churning.

What I'm like, Oh my God, every damn show is doing Shou Sugi Ban.

50:32

You know, Starbucks can be doing Shou Sugi Ban, Walmart's can be doing Shou Sugi Ban, McDonald's can be doing Shou Sugi Ban.

You, you just kill it, you know, you take something beautiful and you run with it until it's just bludgeoned to death.

And that's what they're doing with that.

So balance, balance, you know, restraint, restraint.

50:51

That's that's where it's at.

Yeah, I need to do that with cookies.

Well, dude, inlays, I mean, I'm sitting here looking and I'm just thinking about like how this plays in everything we do.

I'm looking at I have a coffee table and I have a side table in my studio and they both have an inlay.

They have one small stone inlay that is intentionally placed.

51:13

And when I say intentionally, it's not just arbitrarily in the surface, it's it's aligned to some aspect of the piece, right.

And it's intentional.

But one, and I think we all go through the Phase I went through it, you probably went through it where you get really excited about inlays and you end up doing like the Dalmatian where you put it a piece of stone, a piece of stone, a piece of stone, a piece of stone, a piece of stone, a piece of stone, you know, like cut geodes all through the countertop evenly spaced and it's just like, and you de-mold it and it looks like a Dalmatian, you know?

51:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you're like, huh, Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.

You know, 10 inlays is not as good as one inlay. 1 inlay intentionally placed is far more beautiful and impactful and in timeless versus 10.

51:59

But it's something that you learn through doing.

You know you have to do it to look back and be like, Nah, that sucks.

Yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying.

Yeah, but it just comes from, it comes from experience and it comes from making mistakes and then realizing where the mistake is and that sometimes that's not immediate.

52:18

It's not immediate with me.

I make things and I think it looks cool initially, and then two years later, look back, I'm like, why the hell did I think that was cool?

That's horrible, but it took a while for it to sink in that it sucked, you know?

So it just, it takes time, but in time there's restraint.

52:34

You know, I look at like Dusty's work, we talked about Dusty's a lot, but DustyCrete, how it just continually becomes more and more restrained in time, more and more refined in time.

And that's the evolution of an artist.

That's an evolution of taste.

52:49

That's an evolution of what is aesthetically beautiful and timeless, and it always comes back to restraint.

And that's where Dusty is with DustyCrete.

If you look at DustyCrete pieces now and you look at DustyCrete pieces in year 1, they are night and day different.

They are so different.

Yeah, that's just evolution.

53:07

And we all go through it.

All right, Jon, let's wrap this thing up.

I got to get to work.

All right, buddy, I I do want to.

Yeah, I do want to hit one more time.

I'm going to try to load those new pads on the website today on kodiakpro.com And I also want to let people know we are going to be selling these individually.

53:26

So before we only had them in sets, but we have enough stock now that we're going to sell these individually.

There's a price break for the set, but we're going to have a price break for the set.

Then we have a price break for three pads and we're going to have single pads.

Single pads are going to be the most expensive, but you can't if you just need a A60 grit, you can go buy a 60 grit.

53:43

You don't have to buy a whole set so.

Yeah, we have more and more people trying to get by them individually, so that's awesome.

Yep.

So that's going to be loaded up on the site today, if not today then tomorrow, but they will be available.

Yep.

All right, Jon, we'll just wrap it up.

All right, buddy.

All right, buddy.

53:59

Adios, amigo.

Adios, have a great day.