Friday, December 19, 2014

2323 Project-Finishing Up

The 2323 project has completed. It involved 9 countertop sections, one shower insert, and one window box. The shower and window box were done last and were by far the most complicated.
Here's an in-process shot of gluing up the shower insert mold. Since it was one piece, the mold had to basically come out of the hardened concrete.
 
It was cold in the shop the night we placed these and it took about 4 hours longer than normal for the concrete to get to a point to trowel the backs.  
 
 One thing we know about concrete is that it shrinks. Even with all the relief cuts in the molds, these fought and fought coming out.
 
In the end everything came out just fine.
 
So on to some final shots of the installation. Kitchen with metal cabinets.


 
These countertops had pretty minimal finishing. They got a quick wet grind with 100 grit, slurry to fill any bug holes, then a final grind with 200 grit before sealing. I used ICT from Blue Concrete. This has been by far the best non-film forming coating I have used on countertops. These countertops have been in over a month with normal wear. Plenty of normal kitchen use means spills don't get immediately wiped up, more like dry out and get cleaned up a few days later. Nothing that has gotten spilled has made the slightest difference. I will have some more on that later. I placed a series of test samples and am going to do a round of testing for non-film forming coatings, similar to my previous sealer evaluations. 
 
That is polished/ground only to 200 grit. These got ground after curing 2 days. Normally a shine like this would take to much older and harder concrete. The nice thing is that with my new mix there is less than a week from templating to installation.  
 
The shower pieces installed.
 
 The shelves are tempered glass held in place with stainless pins.
 
The master bath vanities are pretty simple. The platinum grey works well with the walnut and blue scheme.