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Q&A
Recent queries and answers from PROSOCO’s
technical Customer Care files
Q. One of my customers just called wanting to know what to use to clean excess mortar off the manufactured stone I sold him a while back. What do you suggest?
A. Manufactured stone has been around since the early 20th century and has always been problematic to clean. The problem is any cleaner strong enough to dissolve excess mortar will also etch and take color out of the stone. That’s one reason why most masons working with manufactured stone do such careful work. Construction is a dirty job, however, and manufactured stone surfaces, like most masonry, usually need post-construction clean down. PROSOCO developed Sure Klean® Manufactured Stone Cleaner expressly for the challenge of cleaning this sensitive masonry. One of its great advantages is that it contains no hydrochloric acid. Here are some tips for use: Most important —always test the cleaner on a small, out of the way area before overall use. Dilute one part cleaner with three parts clean water before applying. Always pre-wet the masonry thoroughly with clean water before applying. Rinse thoroughly after application. Make sure your rinse pressure is between 400 and 1,000 psi—certainly no higher than 1,000 psi. Gallons per minute should be high, however. We recommend 6-8 gpm. After cleaning, it’s a good idea to use a penetrating, breathable water repellent as recommended by many manufactured stone producers. Weather Seal Blok-Guard® & Graffiti Control II and Weather Seal Siloxane PD are both good choices for manufactured stone.
Q. Is Sure Klean® Siloxane PD (Prediluted) suitable for colored architectural block?
A. The short answer is no. Better choices would be Sure Klean® Custom Masonry Sealer, Sure Klean® Weather Seal Blok-Guard® & Graffiti Control (and its water-based version, Blok-Guard® & Graffiti Control II), and Sure Klean® Weather Seal Siloxane WB (waterbased) Concentrate. For architectural block, dilute Siloxane WB 1 part product to nine parts fresh water. Due to varying rates of absorption, however, Siloxane PD is quite effective on denser concrete, such as precast and broom-finished, as well as many clay and stone masonries (including manufactured stone, as in the previous question). That said, there are a few types of architectural block that are dense enough to get a good performance out of Siloxane PD. But since the previously named products are effective on the full spectrum of architectural block, it makes more sense to use them. They are specifically designed for this substrate. |
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