Grinding and Shot Blasting

Grinding:

Grinders utilize moving plates holding diamond tooling to remove the top layer or ‘cream’ of a concrete surface.  They can be used to even out rough surfaces as well as to remove coatings and adhesives.  Grinding is the most common form of surface prep for epoxy coatings.  The diamond tooling is available is different grits from coarse to fine.  There are also different metal bonds which are adjusted depending on the hardness of the concrete.

Grinders provide a smoother finished surface than scarifiers and shot-blasters.  Grinding is also the method used to polish concrete.

Shot-Blasting:

Shot-Blasters propel thousands of tiny steel balls at the surface removing the weaker cream as well as surface contaminates and thin build coatings.  The steel ‘shot’ bounces off the surface and is vacuumed up along with the dust and debris.  The heavier shot falls back into the hopper and is recycled.   The lighter debris is caught in the vacuum for disposal.

Shot-blasting is ideal for prepping uneven surfaces for coatings as it hits the entire floor including all the low spots and divots that would be missed by grinding.  Shot-blasting is ideal to prep for coatings as well as self-leveling materials, underlayments and other cementitious surfaces.