Vivid Acid Stain for Concrete Mission Brown 4OZ

Okay.....bear with me. The sales pictures of the results using this type of concrete stain are captivating, to say the least. I am no klutz, and have built and stained/finished high end furniture for over 30 years for a living. I understand materials and their application. WOW, who wouldn't want that "faux Marble" look that is shown when this stain is applied properly. For a couple hundred $$, you can have a million dollar floor, driveway, patio, or pool surround.We used it on a 25 X 30, NEW kitchen floor.....yeah, that IS a big kitchen. We process hundreds of pounds of vegetables, fruit, and butcher multiple deer, hogs, goats and chickens throughout a normal year....we milk a Guernsey and several Dexters and make 4 lbs of cheese a day. We wanted a DURABLE, WASHABLE, ATTRACTIVE floor. We chose "Coffee" because it mimicked the dirt color around here the best.I am going to try and write this to "add" to the Instructions and TDS, (Technical Data Sheets), that are available on the product. Most of the questions I ask, or information I pass on are "extra" to the actual application of the stain....THEY ARE CRITICAL FOR A QUALITY COMPLETION OF A PROJECT USING THIS STAIN.1) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.......... MULTIPLE TIMES.2) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND TDS SHEETS.......MULTIPLE TIMES.3) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, AND WHILE YOU ARE READING THEM, RUN A COUPLE OF THE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE SO THAT YOU CAN GET "ORIENTED" AS TO VARIOUS APPLICATION METHODS.4) SO YOU DON'T FORGET ANYTHING....READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AGAIN.5) GET THE COMPANY'S TECHNICAL SUPPORT PHONE NUMBER WHERE YOU CAN HAVE IT READILY AVAILABLE.6) CONSIDER THESE QUESTIONS THAT THE MANUFACTURER DOES NOT ASK, OR ONLY TOUCHES ON VERY SUPERFICIALLYA) What is your concrete made of.....Ha,HA you laugh....it's made of gravel, sand and Portland Cement, Well, the only thing that concrete in various parts of the country have in common is Portland Cement. Sand and gravel will vary from city to city. Here in NW Arkansas, we have concrete plants on a creek or river that use washed and graded creek gravel and sand for their mix. 30 miles away, we have concrete plants that are far from a creek....but close to a lot of quarry-able limestone. They crush and grade limestone, and use it for both "gravel" and "sand". WOW, does that make some VERY strong concrete.....BUT....it is a completely different beast from smooth, washed creek gravel and sand. IT IS VERY HIGH IN REACTIVE CARBONATES....AND MAGNESIUM.... The creek mix is FAR,FAR less reactive to the stain. Can you find out the source and ask them what mix they used, or usually use when supplying a project in your area.B) How well is your concrete finished ???How "tight" is the surface. Who was the finisher, and what does he remember about the mix and the pour. There are vast differences in texture and composition between lightly troweled and heavily troweled concrete.C) CONSIDER BUYING the stain sample kit sold by the company....BUT, one caveat. When we send out color samples to furniture customers, we stress over and over again that it is nearly impossible to get an accurate vision of a completed piece's color from a small, hand held, sample. We did not get the kit. We picked a color and understood that, good-or-bad, we would be "stuck" with the color it yielded on our floor. You may have a VERY,VERY easy go of it, and everything might fall into place with what you have to work with. BUT IF IT DOESN'T....can you live with less-than-expected results ??D) How long has the concrete been in place??? Inside, or outside like a driveway/sidewalk/pool surround??? If it is outside.....and is older than 1 or 2 months, HOW ACIDIC is your rain??? Acid is the bane of this finish. It is really not a stain, but a reactive acid/chemical. The longer your concrete is in acidic rain, the less reactive the mix will be. TREATED LUMBER is treated with an acidic, metal mix. If you were to stain a slab that had been in place under an elevated, treated lumber deck that was open to the rain.....you would get the " ghosts " of the boards where the rain dripped off the deck, down onto the concrete.The reactivity of the concrete will depend on an interaction of these elements. After you have a general understanding of what you have to work with, you can begin to gauge how the stain will react, and guess how you should proceed.I did all the research I could, and read the directions and TDS sheets over and over....I watched all the YouTube videos.. I gave this stain a 5 STAR rating. It is fabulous. The company is excellent and responsive to questions. This stain is 2X better than what the Big Box, do-it-yourself stores will sell you. GO WITH VIVID....it is a great product.........HOWEVER....BE WARNED......My completed job was about a 3 STAR from what we " expected ". By the time I do my 3rd floor....I'll know all the ins-and-outs and what to look for. We followed all the directions....researched all the glitches......planned for the unexpected....but this is a totally different process, with its own set of rules. Here is a brief summary of our results.We picked coffee....."brown with a slight red hue".....I used 2.5 gallons on 700 sq ft and there is not a hint of brown, let alone red. It is "black coffee" black. In fact, it is "espresso" black, with the mottling being various shades of gray. I will cut the stain by 1/3.....or maybe 1/2 and go with 2 applications if necessary in the future. We used it full strength.Our concrete was finished by " professionals", but rural Arkansas professionals.....the surface varied in tightness, and the stain took dramatically different on each gradient of "smoothness". It "fizzed" very heavily on some sections, and not-so-much on others. Our concrete is crushed limestone.....very high in Magnesium ( the black we experienced ???).Our slab has a 3" in 30 ft slope toward the back door to facilitate washing the floor and squeegee-ing the water out the door. If a slab is not perfectly level, you will have to be prepared to even out any material that tends to "run" and pool up along the lower part of the spray line. I will have some sort of sponge mop ready to spread the excess in a more even coating.A set of treated lumber stairs ( the slab was completed a year prior to erecting the room over it) left a "ghost" impression in the floor. NO PROBLEM, we are going to brick up a set of stairs on that spot....but do take note of that.My floor was dark, far darker and blacker than we were expecting. I have an 18" industrial buffer and we prepped the floor with a lot of TSP and GREEN pad scrubbing. After staining, we actually used a less abrasive RED pad to try and bump down the color. It did help, and it evened the color out somewhat. I want the marbled effect....but we had from near jet-black to medium gray. I used one coat of SUPER SEAL 20WB. Great product. About 2 gallons sealed the floor. We will do the rest of the electric, hang the sheetrock, do the brickwork and then scrub and seal with a second coat before waxing.Don't get me wrong....the floor is attractive. More so than a slab or a painted slab. We did not achieve the spectacular results that we saw in the "pictures". And, the color was completely different from what we expected. However, notice I didn't say "were led to believe". The company makes it plain as day that there are many, many variables that affect the results. I hope this prompts some to look for more variables, and prepare to adjust the application.A GREAT PRODUCT..... DO YOUR HOMEWORK, AND PREP CAREFULLY.

We are very happy with this Walnut colored acid stain product, and it's the second project we've used it for.This project was large - a 25 x 28 concrete patio with a mag finish, so 700 square feet for the surface and we also sprayed the sides which were 12 - 16 inches high. I'm trying to figure out how to add the pictures of the different stages.I ordered 3 gallons of Walnut color and needed most of it. There was some left over, but 2 gallons would not have been enough. We sprayed with a new/clean 2 gallon weed sprayer and diluted the stain 1:1 with water (1/2 stain, 1/2 water - one gallon of each).The concrete sat for 5 weeks after pouring it before we stained it. First, we cleaned it off well (just dish soap, a hose, and a scrub brush on bird messes). There was no sealant on the concrete. If it were an old patio with oil from a grill we would use TSP or a degreaser to clean it.The first day we sprayed heavily in a circular pattern (watch Youtube videos) and let it dry overnight. After letting it dry overnight we came back the next day and washed off any new bird messes and swept off dirt/grass that got on it. We applied more stain in the areas that we thought were too light. We let this dry overnight and then neutralized the stain.*For neutralizing: We just used 1 cup of ammonia in 2 gallons of water in the sprayer. For a smaller project we had done a couple of years ago, we used a mop and bucket of ammonia water. Because this was on the foundation of the house too (which actually looks really good!), and has sides, we sprayed to get every part neutralized. If you have plants in the area, you may want to mop with a new string mop for this purpose. We then rinsed off the ammonia water with a hose. If you have plants, or are inside, you will want to use a mop.After the patio dried overnight, we sealed the concrete with a roller. Go in one direction for the first layer (watch Youtube videos). This is the stinkiest part, so if you are inside, ventilate well! We let this dry overnight and then cleaned it off again to reseal. We weren't happy with one coat as it bubbled up in some areas and was really light by the cracks. So, we lightly rubbed off the bubbles and sealed again with a roller going in the opposite direction as what we did the first time. We used a disposable chip brush on the cracks and near the house/foundation too. By the end we had used almost 8 gallons of sealer to get the shiny look without any air under it. If your concrete is older, it may not use this much.

I previously wrote a very negative review on the product, and I still stand by that based on what I received. But since then I did hear back from the seller and they refunded me completely and promptly, so they customer service was excellent.