How to Stamp Concrete

Home decorating and designing and architecture has evolved amidst interior decorating styles that are unique and interesting. The 21st century homeowner is not satisfied with only what his money can buy. He is consistently on the look out for ways and means to optimize the funds at hand. When it comes to basic designs involving concrete and paving, the old fashioned ‘keep it simple’ is out. The versatility of available resources and materials to enhance interior designing and exterior enhancement has made it possible for the homeowner to experiment, without professional assistance.

Concrete stamping to enhance the walk or the rock garden, indoors or outdoors, is not at all difficult. If you are an enterprising person and willing to give your touch to the custom home or office, armed with easily accessible material you are ready to go. The exercise could be planned to include the kids and friends. Tell them about signing their names onto the walk or displaying their art on the ledges of the rock garden and they will be more than willing to help, especially the kids. You could plan the event on the weekend and make the effort more of family fun and something to talk about for years to come.

Tools and material required for stamping concrete:

The tools that are good to have within reach while stamping concrete are:

• Texture and Floppy Mats
• Hardener/Integral Color
• Release Agent
• Tamper
• Resin Hand Float
• Bull Float
• Finishing Trowel
• Screed

With good quality concrete, the tools enable you to touch up grout lines and make deeper impressions. There are equipment kits for stamping concrete easily available in the market. The kits also contain guidelines and a step-by-step explanation of the whole process. Planning goes a long way in ensuring a perfect job done. You should read the guidelines and anticipate your needs according to what you have in mind. You should plan on paper:

1. Orientation of grout lines
2. Repetitive patterns like brick or cobblestone
3. Lines of the pattern that run perpendicular to the area to be covered

Preparing a plan:

Conduct a tour: You need to conduct a home improvement study of the interiors or exterior of the home or office, depending on where the exercise is to be put to the test. This is primarily to pick a color and texture to complement the ambience. This helps to provide a pleasant and aesthetic appearance to the new structure and enhance the older ones around.

Perform a trial run: Everyone involved in the task could do with a little practice before expressing art sense. You could place mats in the area before working with concrete. The team could be given a tour of what you have in mind, by showing them the plan on paper and physically, where the mats will be placed in succession. While planning consider the location and the impact of control joints.

Identify your ‘special crew’:Identify four able-bodied adults for undisputed teamwork. Make one in-charge of fluffing the release agent throughout the process and identifying touch up requirements. One team player should be kept in-charge of place the texture mats, aligning them and tamping at the start to avoid untidy grout lines. Another team-mate could ensure the regular supply of concrete and tamp the mats as they are placed, to press mat-flush to the concrete, while the last one could remove the tamped mats and pass them on.

How to Stamp Concrete:

1. Adopt a concrete base that meets the requirements of the planned specifications as far as mix and reinforcement is concerned. Double-check for Calcium Chloride content. It would dilute the effort. Refer to the manual instructions and accordingly create the mixture. The concrete should always be more than four inches in thickness.
2. Color the concrete by using any of two basic techniques. In the integral color technique, the liquid color is mixed with the concrete and poured. In the broadcast technique, the color hardener is poured over the concrete already in place.
3. Remember to use the sweeping arm movement to cover a maximum concrete ‘throw’ each time. The hardener should be allowed to get completely absorbed prior to working on it with wood or any of the floats. The concrete should not be overworked.
4. Once the color is to your satisfaction, the concrete could be offered finesse with a steel trowel or Fresno prior to use of the texture mats. Keep the release agent close at hand at this stage. The powder prevents the mats from sticking to the concrete.
5. The release agent should be brushed onto the mats and broadcast. The layer between the concrete and texture mats should be thick enough to prevent ‘bleeding’ or the wet concrete from seeping.
6. For the artwork, pick the darker colored release agent. This will highlight depth on the set concrete. When pressing a texture mat, supervise the efforts of the kids. Though force is not required, timing is important.
7. Once the texturing of the concrete commences, there is little or no time to waste. This includes the necessary touch-up work as well.
8. Use a good high-powered pressure washer for 24 hours to enable the concrete to set. This helps to remove excess release agent from the surface, evenly. The release remains could be sprayed back into the grout lines.
9. Use a decorative concrete sealer and clear enhancer when the slab is completely dry.

There are professionals who step in to stamp concrete. You could invite the professionals to work on your designs, along with the kids and friends.