BlueConcrete Liquid Z

[jschuler]

I wanted to share some results I had recently on a few of my mixes as I tried to address using Liquid Z or not in some of my mixes. I have been using Liquid Z for the last few years....but there are times I try to go back and use some of my older mix designs....and see if I really need the things I have incorporated into my mixes over the years.

I have a client that wants some balck tops, so I made some samples. One mix I left out Liquid Z the other one I put it in at 25% of my water. Like anyone else I don't want to be adding cost to my mixes, if things are not working as they are advertised or if I really don't need them. These were identical mixes, identical vibration....as close as I could I tried to do everything the same. 5% loading Carbon Black, geez I hate working with Carbon Black...lolol.

Here is the mix I used all water...., pretty normal with with more pin holes than I like.

Here is the same mix with Liquid Z...very few pins...very nice quick slurring is all I need.

Here is a mix I tried with Fortron...and had to dump it. It was terribly foamed

I
Here is the same mix with Liquid Z. A few pins....I was using a glass agg mix...so I knew I would have some....but I will take this over the Fortron any day.

I don't know how many on here test what they are using...to see if it is really worth using or not. But I can tell you....I am pretty much sold on using the Liquid Z in my mixes. With less holes to fill, my processing can be more stream lined.

I hope this helps anyone else on the fence about adding Blue Concrete Liquid Z to their mixes.

[David Manchester]

I just finished my first test piece using Liquid Z @ 20% and Supersealz @ 10% of cementious. I also had 10% VCAS and used Grey Portland. The mix included Mason's sand and white sand with 5 ounces of Glass fiber per cu/ft. It came out really nice! Super dense with few pin holes popping up after wet sanding with 500 grit. Here's a pic of the sinks and the backsplash: I'll try to get some closer pics like John's

[CounterKulture]

I actually switched back to counterflow from optimum and found a significant reduction in pinholes. I am using Tri butyl defoamer and vcas in my mix. I don't know what is going on but Liquid Z is not helping. Maybe its the glass but I have used a glass only mix for two years now with good results! My goal is to cut out as much slurry work as possible. After reading this post I thought liquid Z might be the answer?

John said:

I think it is the counterflow. I have had this issue with it too. There seems to be a significant amount of air produced with Counterflow. Has anyone else had this problem?

[Alla Linetsky]

Optimum must be dosed at the very end, after cement has been added and wetted out. The mix will be barely damp before the optimum is added, but it works well. It's very potent, so don't over-dose it. Start at the low dosage recommended on the label and add by the teaspoon if it's not enough. Otherwise - pinholes and bugholes galore.

I don't know about counterflo, but BASF's Glenium 7700 has a defoamer in it, and together with Liquidz, we get very few pinholes. Keep your w/c below .30 for a conventional concrete mix, and below .33 for a Qwix mix, and you should be OK once you get the mix to flow.

[CounterKulture]

I will try it this week and post my results. Thanks for the input!

Alla Linetsky said:

Optimum must be dosed at the very end, after cement has been added and wetted out. The mix will be barely damp before the optimum is added, but it works well. It's very potent, so don't over-dose it. Start at the low dosage recommended on the label and add by the teaspoon if it's not enough. Otherwise - pinholes and bugholes galore.

I don't know about counterflo, but BASF's Glenium 7700 has a defoamer in it, and together with Liquidz, we get very few pinholes. Keep your w/c below .30 for a conventional concrete mix, and below .33 for a Qwix mix, and you should be OK once you get the mix to flow.

[jschuler]

Give us a call, we also only use glass as our sands and aggs. There are so many variables, if you want, lets talk mix. We have found we needed to increase our total fines. For a long time, although I was referring to my voids, as pin holes.....they really weren't pin holes. They were what I now would refer to as, "voids" created by the way my glass was settling and creating a sort of teepee and a void. This was obvious because you could see the glass.

We found by increasing our total paste content by increasing our super fines, without increasing our TCB, really helped. Now pinners are not an issue.