CC Concrete Coatings Vivid Acid Stain for Concrete | Coffee | 1-Gallon

Okay.....bear with me. The sales pictures of the results using this type of concrete stain are captivating, to say the least. I am no klutz, and have built and stained/finished high end furniture for over 30 years for a living. I understand materials and their application. WOW, who wouldn't want that "faux Marble" look that is shown when this stain is applied properly. For a couple hundred $$, you can have a million dollar floor, driveway, patio, or pool surround. We used it on a 25 X 30, NEW kitchen floor.....yeah, that IS a big kitchen. We process hundreds of pounds of vegetables, fruit, and butcher multiple deer, hogs, goats and chickens throughout a normal year....we milk a Guernsey and several Dexters and make 4 lbs of cheese a day. We wanted a DURABLE, WASHABLE, ATTRACTIVE floor. We chose "Coffee" because it mimicked the dirt color around here the best. I am going to try and write this to "add" to the Instructions and TDS, (Technical Data Sheets), that are available on the product. Most of the questions I ask, or information I pass on are "extra" to the actual application of the stain....THEY ARE CRITICAL FOR A QUALITY COMPLETION OF A PROJECT USING THIS STAIN. 1) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.......... MULTIPLE TIMES. 2) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AND TDS SHEETS.......MULTIPLE TIMES. 3) READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, AND WHILE YOU ARE READING THEM, RUN A COUPLE OF THE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE SO THAT YOU CAN GET "ORIENTED" AS TO VARIOUS APPLICATION METHODS. 4) SO YOU DON'T FORGET ANYTHING....READ THE INSTRUCTIONS AGAIN. 5) GET THE COMPANY'S TECHNICAL SUPPORT PHONE NUMBER WHERE YOU CAN HAVE IT READILY AVAILABLE. 6) CONSIDER THESE QUESTIONS THAT THE MANUFACTURER DOES NOT ASK, OR ONLY TOUCHES ON VERY SUPERFICIALLY A) What is your concrete made of.....Ha,HA you laugh....it's made of gravel, sand and Portland Cement, Well, the only thing that concrete in various parts of the country have in common is Portland Cement. Sand and gravel will vary from city to city. Here in NW Arkansas, we have concrete plants on a creek or river that use washed and graded creek gravel and sand for their mix. 30 miles away, we have concrete plants that are far from a creek....but close to a lot of quarry-able limestone. They crush and grade limestone, and use it for both "gravel" and "sand". WOW, does that make some VERY strong concrete.....BUT....it is a completely different beast from smooth, washed creek gravel and sand. IT IS VERY HIGH IN REACTIVE CARBONATES....AND MAGNESIUM.... The creek mix is FAR,FAR less reactive to the stain. Can you find out the source and ask them what mix they used, or usually use when supplying a project in your area. B) How well is your concrete finished ??? How "tight" is the surface. Who was the finisher, and what does he remember about the mix and the pour. There are vast differences in texture and composition between lightly troweled and heavily troweled concrete. C) CONSIDER BUYING the stain sample kit sold by the company....BUT, one caveat. When we send out color samples to furniture customers, we stress over and over again that it is nearly impossible to get an accurate vision of a completed piece's color from a small, hand held, sample. We did not get the kit. We picked a color and understood that, good-or-bad, we would be "stuck" with the color it yielded on our floor. You may have a VERY,VERY easy go of it, and everything might fall into place with what you have to work with. BUT IF IT DOESN'T....can you live with less-than-expected results ?? D) How long has the concrete been in place??? Inside, or outside like a driveway/sidewalk/pool surround??? If it is outside.....and is older than 1 or 2 months, HOW ACIDIC is your rain??? Acid is the bane of this finish. It is really not a stain, but a reactive acid/chemical. The longer your concrete is in acidic rain, the less reactive the mix will be. TREATED LUMBER is treated with an acidic, metal mix. If you were to stain a slab that had been in place under an elevated, treated lumber deck that was open to the rain.....you would get the " ghosts " of the boards where the rain dripped off the deck, down onto the concrete. The reactivity of the concrete will depend on an interaction of these elements. After you have a general understanding of what you have to work with, you can begin to gauge how the stain will react, and guess how you should proceed. I did all the research I could, and read the directions and TDS sheets over and over....I watched all the YouTube videos.. I gave this stain a 5 STAR rating. It is fabulous. The company is excellent and responsive to questions. This stain is 2X better than what the Big Box, do-it-yourself stores will sell you. GO WITH VIVID....it is a great product.........HOWEVER....BE WARNED......My completed job was about a 3 STAR from what we " expected ". By the time I do my 3rd floor....I'll know all the ins-and-outs and what to look for. We followed all the directions....researched all the glitches......planned for the unexpected....but this is a totally different process, with its own set of rules. Here is a brief summary of our results. We picked coffee....."brown with a slight red hue"..... I used 2.5 gallons on 700 sq ft and there is not a hint of brown, let alone red. It is "black coffee" black. In fact, it is "espresso" black, with the mottling being various shades of gray. I will cut the stain by 1/3.....or maybe 1/2 and go with 2 applications if necessary in the future. We used it full strength. Our concrete was finished by " professionals", but rural Arkansas professionals.....the surface varied in tightness, and the stain took dramatically different on each gradient of "smoothness". It "fizzed" very heavily on some sections, and not-so-much on others. Our concrete is crushed limestone.....very high in Magnesium ( the black we experienced ???). Our slab has a 3" in 30 ft slope toward the back door to facilitate washing the floor and squeegee-ing the water out the door. If a slab is not perfectly level, you will have to be prepared to even out any material that tends to "run" and pool up along the lower part of the spray line. I will have some sort of sponge mop ready to spread the excess in a more even coating. A set of treated lumber stairs ( the slab was completed a year prior to erecting the room over it) left a "ghost" impression in the floor. NO PROBLEM, we are going to brick up a set of stairs on that spot....but do take note of that. My floor was dark, far darker and blacker than we were expecting. I have an 18" industrial buffer and we prepped the floor with a lot of TSP and GREEN pad scrubbing. After staining, we actually used a less abrasive RED pad to try and bump down the color. It did help, and it evened the color out somewhat. I want the marbled effect....but we had from near jet-black to medium gray. I used one coat of SUPER SEAL 20WB. Great product. About 2 gallons sealed the floor. We will do the rest of the electric, hang the sheetrock, do the brickwork and then scrub and seal with a second coat before waxing. Don't get me wrong....the floor is attractive. More so than a slab or a painted slab. We did not achieve the spectacular results that we saw in the "pictures". And, the color was completely different from what we expected. However, notice I didn't say "were led to believe". The company makes it plain as day that there are many, many variables that affect the results. I hope this prompts some to look for more variables, and prepare to adjust the application. A GREAT PRODUCT..... DO YOUR HOMEWORK, AND PREP CAREFULLY.

This stuff is great. Only acid stain I will buy from now on. Best value for money I have found. Thoroughly clean and wash the surface. Seriously... no dust, grime, or cleaning product residue. Wet the concrete with a pump sprayer and soft water. If your water has metals they can mess with the stain and change the color. Apply the stains with sprayer to wet surface as desired. Start with darkest colors and work to lightest. You should see a little flare up as the acid reacts with the surface. That means it's working. It takes time! Acid stains need a lot of time to react and create color. The longer they sit the more vivid the color. I let mine sit overnight but as a rule of thumb neutralize it when you're happy with the color. Neutralize the acid with a water and baking soda solution in a pump sprayer. Ammonia works too but who needs the smell? You should see a little flare up again as you spray. Think baking soda and vinegar. If you plan to seal the surface after staining thoroughly neutralizing the acid is imperative or the sealer will likely fail. Wash it very well. Water and soft bristle brush style. You should get clear clean water. I attached a couple pics of a concrete vanity countertop I made for an idea of the results. I used three colors to create the contrasts but how many you use is completely up to you.

Very easy to use and cement looked great afterwards.

This is a true stain that permanently changes the color of the concrete. The garbage they sell at the big box stores is not so much a stain as a translucent paint that depends on a primer to grip to, which is a dead giveaway that it doesn't penetrate the surface like this does. It's well worth testing your concrete with these samples first as the colors are almost certainly way off from what you're seeing in the description;that's not the company's fault, it's simply at the mercy of your particular slab of concrete and lighting in the area that you're working. That being said, this is very easy to apply, the results are solid and seem like they will last. I ended up buying a couple of gallons of the color that tested favorably for me and sealed according to the instructions.

Perfect size bottle for small touch up jobs on concrete. We have a stamped concrete patio and there were a few spots that had chipped or popped in the brown section. Went to the local concrete contractor store to buy sealer for the patio and asked for stain - they only sold it in gallons. As I wanted to stain these small areas before sealing, I found this on Amazon. The instructions say to dampen the concrete first which I did. The stain goes on looking like a light rust color. I waited an hour and put a second coat on with no water first, and left it over night. It came out the perfect dark brown by the next day. I put sealer over all the concrete and now you would have to look hard for the spots I repaired because it blended in very nicely.

First of all, the colors from this stain are beautiful and pretty close to what you imagine by the pictures on your computer. However, the 4oz bottles do NOT go far. My project was a total of 74 SF. When I looked at the square footage this stain would cover based on reviews (as its not in the description), it was 12-36 SF. So, I figured what I needed by the lowest number, 12, and purchased three bottles. That should have covered 36 SF at least. NOPE! They covered about 20 SF total. (I purchased another brand to cover the rest of what I needed which also didn't go as far as they said.). The problem with running out of acid stain on your concrete, is that it dries before you can get more and then there is no way to blend colors and it removes stain putting wet on dry. So my concrete walkway now looks horrible and flat-out disgusting. It could win an ugly walkway contest in a heartbeat! Not only that, when I received my bottles, two of them had been opened and taped back shut. Of course, there was stain missing out of the bottles (not helpful).

This works excellent. My first time using and it went on great. This was a garage before we converted to a big living room so it was well used. Also 74’ build date. The only pain staking part is the cleaning up and prep work. Also I used a valspar clear sealer on top of it. I went thin coat first then my second clear thicker and finally my third coat thick. This will last for years longer than carpet or wood with 4 kids running around and I have around 100$ In the sealer, stain, and cleaning/prep items. Oh go to harbor freight if you don’t already have one and buy a 4 gal pump up sprayer...

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