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Acid staining just poured countertops
Stonecasters	04-04-2008 16:53:13
Member Posts: 8 Joined: 04-03-2008	I just completed a large countertop project using Cheng's premixed stuff. I picked amber color and they came out nice, but I am a little worried that they are too much of a peanut butter color. They are still in casts until Sunday morning. My question is...since they are already integrally colored, has anyone had success acid staining or antiquing the tops after they are demolded, but before sealing, to get a different/darker color?

MC	04-04-2008 18:00:06
Member Posts: 764 Joined: 05-20-2007	You can stain concrete whether its integrally colored or not. But I wouldnt do anything untill you polish it and then see what it looks like. Most of the time the color will darken or deepen a little once you polish it out. Also sealing with a solvent will bring out alot more color.

consci	04-05-2008 08:04:02
Member Posts: 64 Joined: 04-02-2008	to me chengs mix always looks a little like peanut butter when reverse casting, the water reducers in the mix tends to force alot of the bleed water to the suface carrying with it some of the oxide pigments, which are typically a rusty color. I had a problem with a top we did for a kitchen renovations show on the DIY network. We used chengs mix and the producers wanted to show a colored and stained top. The stain didn't take very well, kinda blotchy. We had to repour using our own shop mix. Not sure if it was from some of the admixtures in the mix or we had some bad malamine for our form. Not that I am promoting a very expensive mix, but it does turn out a damn nice looking top, with a really tight suface. I bet you will be suprised how nice the subtle mottleing will look after a good polish

Stonecasters	04-05-2008 14:08:14
Member Posts: 8 Joined: 04-03-2008	I did pull them out of the casts today, and they are peanut butter colored. I started grinding down and they are actually a nice color. I did get Cheng's polish kit which broke after about 5 minutes. Overall I don't like his stuff, will go back to mixing by scratch. I was hoping to find a good looking premix to cut down on buying so many small things (metokaolin, fibers, snad, cement, etc.) I got to say I was a little scared when I flipped them over, they were so shiny that I thought I had cut my plastic underlayment when I was setting them up, I have never seen counters like these. With the peanut butter color and a plastic loking top, hey almost looked like melamine boards. After grinding them down, they looked good.

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