On Oct 22, 11:13*am, Jim Elbrecht wrote:
" wrote:
On Oct 22, 6:49*am, Jim Elbrecht wrote:
On Mon, 22 Oct 2012 06:06:52 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Sun, 21 Oct 2012 22:25:45 -0500, Puddin' Man
wrote:

About 2 years ago, I had to mix/pour a sidewalk section in front of my house.
I used Quikcrete, finished it, but was too tired to seal it. It was -much-
lighter in color than the old concrete.

Just today I got around to dragging out some Thompsons-type waterseal that
had been in the basement for years. Brushed it on and it looked pretty good.
Toned the color down as I'd hoped.

A few hours later, and it's drastically uneven and splotchy. Not acceptable.

I'm (obviously) not a serious concrete person. What might it take to seal
and look decent?

Try a second coat. *The first may have just even *out some spots and
the second may even it out. *This often happens with primer on wood so
it may work here.

+1 on that thought-- *and if 2 don't get there, try 3. . . *or 4.

Jim- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm not sure why you'd want to seal a sidewalk to begin
with.

To achieve what the OP asked about-- matching the color of aged
concrete?

Unfortunately, I don't see a clear sealer doing that, which
apparently was what Puddin found out.





In northern climes you might also help yourself out on a few frosty
mornings--

Help yourself do what? Slip and fall because with the
frost on the sealer it's slick?




*and, less likely, IMO , help the new concrete resist the
effects of rock salt.

That might be true.




Most importantly- and I've only used this stuff indoors, but I *love*
it. * That new sealer that you roll on as soon as the concrete has set
slows the curing process and eliminates messing with plastic to cover.

Probably 99.9% of the sidewalks out there are not
sealed to begin with. *One downside to sealing is that it
makes it slippery when wet, not a good thing for a sidewalk.
And the more coats you put on the slicker it gets.

If sealer makes your sidewalk slippery you already ruined it.

Nonsense. Read the directions for most of the concrete
sealers and they specifically warn about it potentially making
concrete slippery.



*A
broom finish will take a whole lot of sealer to bridge those ridges.

Jim- Hide quoted text -

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Yes, having the underlying finish be rougher will help, but
any concrete with a typical sealer is going to be more
slippery that one without.

And the point is, what's the point? New concrete is almost
always going to look different than adjacent sections that
are old and aged. I don't see a clear sealer fixing that.'
If he wants to go with a concrete stain, then maybe, but
I'd think unless it's a solid type, the differences in the two
sections are still going to show up. And with a solid stain,
it looks like it's been painted. The usual solution is to
just let it age and after a few years, the differences will
diminish.