Welding Tips and Tricks

Hey I am new to your site, and this is a little off topic but I thought one of you might help me. I am in the process of building a new shop and I poured and finished the concrete yesterday. I had a very heavy coat of curring seal put on it and will sit for about a week before I start assembling the metal frame. My question is what have ya'll found in your experence to be the best finish coating for a concrete floor in a welding and assembly shop that si going to last and be the most resistant to burning from slag and sparks?

I guess I'm a Damn lepper, this is the only foroum I have been to where you can't even get a simple yes or no answer!

Sorry man, It wasn't a yes or no question. Apparently no one here has had much experience with different floor coatings. If anyone had anything to say, Im sure they would have. I've only had a bare concrete floor in my shops, worked fine.

the seal coat you put on should give you some protection from oxyfuel cutting popping chips out of the floor (from steam expansion) but I have no idea whether it will scorch w/ sparks and spatter. I've only used the floor epoxy stuff in a paint booth which, for obvious reasons, isn't used for welding. you should be fine with what you have, though. if you get a big nasty burn, a wire brush and some touch up sealer should serve you well.

Thanks that little bit of info answered my question

The cure you probably applied will have minimal affect on your concrete wear unless it was a densifying type that actually penatrates the concrete surface and makes it harder and more resistant to abrasion. Also the type of finsh that was put on the concrete makes a difference. Floors that are burnished are much more dense. Floors that are finished with 1,800 lb riding trowels are denser than one finished with walk behind trowels.

There have been many advances in curing technologies in the past few years, nano-tech. Lithium products are a top notch system that are burnished in with floor buffers that really increase your wear resistance

conccreteguy, are there iproved thermal properties of these newer concrete mixes, or just abrasion? molten steel has a habit of popping chunks of concrete out of the floor from the residual water content in the concrete rapidly turning to steam.