Polishing a Concrete Countertop

[Music] when you break out the mallet in the crowbar it's never a good sign never a good sign i am so scared right now [Music] hey come on hey come here this is concrete feel it no it's not oh i like that cool hey carl i feel my top hey don't feel my time real quick that's nice huh come feel my tongue what's that what is happening my name is michael and today i'm going to show you how to polish concrete by simply using these inexpensive diamond polishing pads you also get to watch me screw up quite a bit throughout the way and if i forget to tell you how smooth this top is throughout the video i'm gonna tell you now this this is smooth it's very smooth so let's make something cool [Music] [Applause] [Music] so welcome to the first video of 2021 hopefully it won't be quite the dumpster fire that 2020 was we're staying my life man so this is another highly requested video how to polish a concrete countertop the only problem is i have no idea how to do that this is my first time we got a first timer out here so i'm not teaching you anything today we're gonna learn together so i feel like it's important to tell you that this is not a sponsored video but i purchased these diamond pads on amazon.com by a company called stadia and it comes with an assortment of grits which is really cool and it even comes with an adapter for your grinder and it was a very fair price i think it was like 36 bucks i also purchased do you guys remember the uh the concrete leveler video how i uh my very feeble attempt to keep the dust down with the vacuum was well i don't want to do that again so i went to home depot and i bought this uh dust shroud it was in stock it was about 54. us but um i think this is going to be well worth the money but the other cool thing about these pads is that you can wet grind these or dry grind these but we're gonna try both to see which one works better which one makes more dust or if this shroud is even necessary so so let's get started [Music] [Music] sorry about the noise from the heater but it is cold in the shed today so i asked my new buddy kevin the guy you saw in my last video if he had any tips when working with these pads and he said that depending on how big or how much aggregate that you want to expose maybe start off with 800 but if you want even more and bigger and deeper aggregate exposed then maybe start off with the 100 or the 50. there really weren't a whole lot of instructions to go with these pads but uh the little instructions that there were it sounded like the 50 grit is more for leveling off like high spots and low spots if you have like a wavy top so it doesn't sound like i need the 50 for this nice smooth top but uh i'm gonna flip this top over where i trialled it just to just to see what it does and how it performs but according to the uh the packaging it strongly suggests to not skip any other grids along the way to 6000. yeah this this kit is great because it comes with uh grits anywhere from 50 all the way up to 6 000 grit so i imagine that's going to get us a nice high gloss now the other tip that kevin gave me was to use plenty of water but uh i really want to try out my new dust shroud and i want to see how well this does at picking up the dust and i'm now seeing on the side of the packaging that i i was supposed to buy an adapter to hook it up to my vacuum so i'm going to have to uh i'm going to figure that one out so let's outfit our grinder with our dust shroud now the other thing that i absolutely must mention while i'm outfitting this grinder is according to the packaging you really shouldn't use these pads with a high rpm grinder in fact it specifies no more than 4500 rpm this grinder it's 11 000 rpm so please don't be a like me and use something that's more than double the rpm suggested but i don't like being told what to do so anyway looks like it comes with these adjustable mounts that are spring-loaded which is kind of cool you just slip it in and tighten up this pipe clamp here now i just got to figure out the vacuum nozzle situation here [Music] [Applause] [Music] don't you dare judge me now this is kind of a gnarly enough surface for us to test the 50 grit out so that's what we're going to start with [Music] oh hey i wonder if this adapter will work just found it all right we're back in business [Music] [Music] all right so far i am very happy uh but first let's talk about this dust shroud um there was virtually there's no dust so this was worth every penny i probably didn't even need my dust mask but the diamond pad i am even happier with because i i wish you guys could feel how smooth this is how smooth this is how smooth this is even at the 50 grit it it almost feels like glass but you can see all these light spots these are low spots so i would definitely have to keep working at this a little bit longer but what i like about the 50 grit is it takes a decent amount of material off but it doesn't take off too much so i don't have to be fearful of digging in and making gouges which i promise you that struggle the struggle is real but honestly i i don't feel like we need to waste our time with this uh this gnarly side i think we got the information we want from this let's let's work on the cool side now i am going to start with the 400 grit i don't think it's necessary but just to engage the performance of these diamond pads no we're gonna go we're gonna go back to the 50 grit i can tell that this is not going to expose my aggregate as fast as i want [Music] [Music] all right so i broke down i went out and bought a very cheap variable speed polisher sander um i just i really feel like the grinder that i have the rpms are just way too fast which i think essentially is causing some jittering of the pads and also i'm scared that i i might be burning the pads out faster than i need to be so went to harbor freight it cost me like 35 bucks and i i really think that this is gonna be a lot better for us in the long run but uh i've also outfitted it with uh my cheap diamond grinder bit the the 50 grits great but it wasn't taking off as much material as i wanted and it wasn't exposing the aggregate as much as i wanted to fast enough also put our dust collector back on and this will be the real test to see if this dust collector works well gonna try some wet grinding with the 50 grit but uh just made a big fat mess so uh don't forget to put a tarp out before you start [Music] [Music] all right we are only at 100 grit right now and it's already starting to have kind of a satin finish and it is still just it's already so smooth so if you didn't want any gloss and you just wanted a satin finish i suppose you could just stop here and seal it but we're going to keep going god it's just so smooth [Music] wet polishing doesn't seem to be cutting any better than dry polishing so i'm gonna go back to dry polishing also this is just way too messy [Music] something i've been kind of going back and forth on uh not sure exactly what i should be doing but i've been putting pressure on the disc forward i've been putting pressure on the disc backwards and trying to lay it nice and flat i found that laying it nice and flat is the way to go obviously you get the most surface area laying it flat and i find that you get a much more even texture laying it flat as well and i'm sure that you can keep the temperature down a lot easier that way and avoid making burn marks [Music] something i'm noticing as far as technique is concerned is that it seems to be much easier to get a nice consistent surface when you're going in nice tight circles from left to right back and forth all the way down until you cover the whole surface and with each grit i've been doing that twice [Music] that's it that's that's the 6000 grit and oh my god is it smooth now of course i'm going to seal this now uh kevin in the concrete countertop video he used the chang concrete countertop sealer which will give it a satin finish but i'm going to use the stone care granite and stone sealer because it's not going to change the sheen at all i want to keep this nice glossy shiny sheen and oh my god oh my god is this smooth but um just put a couple coats of this on there and you'll be good now i know what you're thinking you're thinking michael how am i gonna take this just one step further well what you do is you put a killer logo on it [Music] i had something so different planned for that reveal the plan was to have this logo buried underneath the concrete i was gonna go ahead and polish it and grind it and then make the reveal of the design but it just didn't work out like that i actually loosely placed the glass in the form in this logo design and then pour it on top of it thinking that it would actually stay in place it didn't started moving around on me don't know why i didn't know that was gonna happen so then i had to mix the glass in there and that's the first top that you just saw so here's how i did this design i drew my logo on the form i sprayed it down with low tack spray adhesive and i individually placed each piece of glass with inside the drawing now it was very easy but it was uh very time consuming the only real nerve-wracking part about this was actually de-molding it because i had never done it like this before and i was very worried that when i de-molded it these little pieces of glass were gonna come out when i de-molded it but this got the exact same treatment that the last top got i started off roughing it down with this rough grinder to expose all that great aggregate then i just went through all my grits one by one until we got to the 6000 grit which it's just so smooth wish you could i just wish you could yeah babe you gotta come in here i gotta show you something yeah i'll see in a second huh huh what do you [Music] what think you think [Music] god damn i mean what do you think this is your top this is very flat smooth isn't it this is your first time yeah that system is very easy it is i don't even know you good morning max like this is beautiful [Music] no [Music] that is so sweet how on the heck did you do that serious come feel it [Laughter] oh look at that is that you yes it's concrete [Music] it's very different it is like a silky countertop it's concrete i like that word silk it's silky right concrete and glass and i smoothed it out i polished it it's like a silky countertop like if you got like granite or something they're also gonna be on a youtube video too so am i being filmed right now hello [Music] all right final thoughts these pads totally worth it not only were they easy to use but they are very inexpensive as well i highly recommend these the stadia diamond pads there's gonna be a link down below this dust collector i absolutely recommend this it was worth every penny i will never again do another grinding or polishing project without it just don't forget to get the vacuum adapter that you need for your size hose so what did we figure out we figured out one get yourself a variable speed polisher slash grinder you need the low rpms on this guy it'll be much easier to handle you'll have less of a chance of burning out your pads or the surface of your concrete not to mention the high speed grinder way too dangerous please don't do that number two if you're looking to expose some really great aggregate then pick yourself up a nice cheap rough diamond grinding wheel to really get aggressive with that first layer if you're not looking to expose a whole lot of aggregate skip that step number three do not skip any of the grits in between work your way from 50 all the way to 6 000 you're gonna get a way more polished surface number four i would not even bother wet polishing i did not find that it cut any better with the water than without so i would go dry all the way from 50 to 6000. if you do end up wet polishing make sure you throw a tarp down and cover anything that you don't want to get messy i spent hours cleaning up my mess hours number five in the final tip make sure you stay as flat to the surface as possible don't angle it like this you're going to get much more surface area out of the pad and you're gonna have less of a chance of burning the pad or burning your surface and that's it for this video if you liked it please hit the like button and if you haven't subscribed yet please think about doing so i promise you won't regret it don't forget michael builds merch link down below if you want to help support the channel and i'll see you guys in the next one it's just so smooth [Music] [Applause] oh hey jordan where are you at i'm sleeping then never mind i'm you you go back to sleep and i'll explain all this all this on monday why because i don't want anything i swear to god i don't want anything but i'll tell you all about it i i am so sorry that i woke you up [Laughter] go back go back to sleep it's 4 31 he's sleeping what a lazy mother

Channel: Michael Builds

Views: 227,687

Keywords: cement countertops, coffee table, concrete counter top, concrete countertop, concrete countertops, concrete finishing, concrete grinding, concrete polishing, concrete sealer, diamond pads, diy, diy concrete, do it yourself, epoxy resin, exposed aggregate, fire glass, glass aggregate, gloss, grinding, home improvement, how to, how to make concrete countertops, polish, polish concrete countertop, polishing concrete, polishing concrete countertops, rapid set, stadea

Id: ybeaqN-kx8Q

Length: 22min 16sec (1336 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021