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Concrete Decor - Index

Concrete Decor - Concrete Decor Magazine, The Journal for Decorative Concrete - Index

Polished Perspectives
did not have the ability to fl oat with the
fl oor and polish only the surface cream,
unless the fl oor had been initially
fi nished fl at. With a wavy fl oor, you had
either the choice of fully fl attening the
fl oor to produce a uniform appearance,
or simply taking off the high spots,
leaving a very mottled, irregular
appearance. With stone-industry
equipment, not only was your cutting
path narrower, but the equipment was
much slower and had less head pressure.
Yet, if the customer did not require
a totally fl at fl oor for performance
requirements, the swing machines,
such as VMC’s CCG lines, could “ride
the waves” and produce a beautifully
polished cream. The ride-on and walkbehind
equipment was well suited
for polishing, along with cleaning the
fl oors or working the densifi er, but not
grinding. It must be noted that although
industrial vacuums did exist in the early
days, they were ineffi cient, so that most
early work was performed wet. Today
you not only have surface-preparation
companies providing grinders and
78 | www.ConcreteDecor.net | Dec. ’07/Jan. ’08
polishers, but also
established stone
industry companies.
Diamond
evolution has not
slowed from the
early days. In
fact, during the
past several years,
diamond technology
has leapfrogged
equipment
advancements.
Not only have the
matrices that hold
the diamonds
been improved
specifi cally
for concrete
grinding and polishing, but so have the
diamonds. Today you have diamonds
for wet, diamonds for dry, diamonds
that can be used wet or dry. In addition,
you have “pad-based” diamonds that
are intended to provide a more effective
and effi cient polishing process, either
at the end of the densifying process
A custom metal leveling plate from the stone restoration industry.
or simply as an ongoing maintenance
process. The Twister pad from HTC was
the fi rst product in this category when
introduced two years ago, and several
additional products with a different
approach exist today, such as Concrete
Polishing Solutions polishing pads and
the Innovatech I-Shine Polish System.