Bart Sacco of Kingdom Products and Rachel Knigge, a stencil artist with FloorMaps Inc., collaborated to produce a logo on a floor at a new Army/Air Force main exchange at Fort George G. Meade in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
The project, at an indoor mall with multiple vendors and a food court, was slated to open in six weeks, in December 2014, in time for the Christmas holidays. The project’s 110,000-square-foot floor developed the problem of “craze cracking,” caused by rapid shrinkage of the surface, forming crack patterns across it that looked like spider webs. That flaw had to be fixed, and an article in our Nov/Dec 2015 issue profiled that process.
Knigge initially installed the logo using dyes, but when the original floor delaminated it had to be redone. A cementitious overlay was chosen due to the large aggregate exposure created when addressing the delamination issues. Sacco’s Kingdom Products provided all of the materials, and Knigge consulted with Sacco to custom-match the colors needed for the micro-topping used in the X logo.
“Due to the deep shades needed, our Rosalia Micro Topping was pigmented to match as closely as possible,” says Sacco. “Then the remaining coloration to make it “spot on” to match the Fort Meade color scheme was done with our Heavy Body Stain. When dry it received several coats of satin gloss pure acrylic sealer.”
Knigge had previously created a logo that was done on polished concrete with a black Ameripolish dye tinted in shades of gray. She was tapped to create the new logo as of October 2014.
“Unfortunately, the new floor started to delaminate and it was decided to repolish the floor,” says Knigge. “Once that was done, because of the aggregate exposure on it, the consultant, David Stephenson, suggested doing something completely different that hadn’t been done before. So we did a cementitious overlay where the stencil was but doing it in color in shades of red and bright blue over polished concrete.”
“We used the Kingdom Products Rosalia Fine as a base coat and the Rosalia Cream as a top coat,” says Sacco. “Both coatings of Rosalia were pigmented to closely match the color needed for the Army facility. The final color match was done with our Kingdom Products Heavy Bodied Pigmented Stain. One coat of this material was applied for colorization purposes and allowed to cure completely. After the stain cured, several coats of Kingdom Regal Seal WB, a clear pure acrylic sealer, was applied as a final coating to add additional wear resistance and gloss to the logo.”
The FloorMap stencil was applied, the exposed surface area was etched with Surface Gel Tek, cleaned and dried thoroughly, bonding agent applied, and the Kingdom Products overlay was applied with integral color. Once dry, the overlay was thoroughly sanded and wiped down, then Heavy Body Stain was applied. Once dry, several coats of satin gloss pure acrylic sealer were then applied.
“We ended up having to do a combination of both stain and overlay because the colors were so vibrant we couldn’t add enough pigment to the overlay to not break down and ruin the chemical properties,” explains Knigge. “We ended up tinting the overlay and then we applied a stain over the top of that and then sealed it.”
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The stencil was left in place until the work was completely done, to the point of being dry to the touch but not coming up on fingers. “Then we let it cure and sanded and sealed it,” says Knigge.
Despite the initial problems with the overall floor, it all turned out beautifully.
