Patterning And Sawing Stained Surfaces

To enhance the decorative concrete surface, you will have to use sandblasting and cutting. You can achieve different looks by timing these tasks appropriately. If you wish to have an evenly colored finish, you have to cut lines after you are finnished with the staining.

Considering that stains will penetrate the surface differently at the points where indentations are made, the look of decorative concrete will change. In case you want to change a color right at the pattern line, you need to cut the line and create a blockage for stains. And if you want to grout those sawed joints, you need to take care of the staining and sealing first. This is because you want to prevent grout to accumulate on the stains.

Chalk or pencil are usually used for pattern lines. Be careful to mark the cut lines properly and avoid using chalk that is difficult to remove. You can find many different tools to cut patterns in concrete. Some contractors use hand-held saws, others use grinders. Another great choice are diamond blades that won't damage the concrete. A convenient thing to have here is a dust collector so that all the dust will be captured during the sawing or grinding.

When you want to cut a pattern before concrete staining, you need to cut it just before you prepare the surface for staining. Because the dust will have a lot of free lime it can stick to the surface and mess up your colors. Distortion will appear because that extra lime will activate stains much sooner than needed. When you want to cut after the staining, make sure you do it after the surface has been sealed.

There is one more complicated method you can try. It requires some patience to do this properly, as well as experience, but you can create a very luxurious look. If you apply stencils to concrete surface AFTER it has been stained, you can sandblast it and reveal concrete where the stencils are not present. The stencils will stick to the surface, but make sure you seal the surface before you sandblast it to make sure the stencils stick even better. By using this method, you can create tile patterns.