Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Due to numerous requests in the comments to my videos, today I will try to make a composition of polystyrene foam and solvents for application to concrete. I would like to see how it will behave, because car owners are interested in cheap varnish to cover the garage against dampness.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Gasoline and foam


I'll start by dissolving the foam in gasoline. I should also check it in acetone and solvent, but I think that acetone dries too quickly. I pour 92 gasoline into a clean, empty metal can. You will need a little more than half the can of gasoline.
I cut a piece of polystyrene foam approximately 1500 mm long and 40 mm thick into strips and lower them one by one into a jar of gasoline. The width of the strip should be chosen according to the size of the can. My goal is to see how the resulting composition will behave on concrete (I don’t need a lot of varnish). The foam easily fits into the jar, melts and compresses into a fairly dense lump at the bottom.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Note: This will cause the gasoline to bubble and splash out of the can.
The resulting composition has the appearance of a gel and is similar to napalm (when ignited, it immediately flares up, burns for a long time, and the flame is high).It is not possible to regulate the viscosity of the composition by adding gasoline - it reaches a certain thickness and the process stops there. I leave the jar for a while so that the air bubbles come out and all the pieces of foam dissolve.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Covering the concrete floor


I take out the gel-like mass from the bottom of the jar and transfer it to another container. I clean the area of ​​the concrete slab with a wire brush and blow off dust with a spray gun. I prepared a brush and a spatula for work, which I lightly greased with oil. This will prevent the varnish from sticking.
It turned out to be more convenient to work with a spatula.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

I pour the varnish onto the concrete and use a spatula to apply it to the surface using movements in different directions. After finishing the job, there is practically nothing left on the spatula. When applying the varnish you immediately smell the smell of gasoline. I leave this area for about an hour to dry.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Dissolving polystyrene foam in xylene


I will conduct the second experiment with xylene (one liter costs 110 rubles). If you cover the entire garage with this composition, then its cost will be 2.5 times more expensive than polystyrene foam varnish dissolved in gasoline. To dissolve in xylene, I chose denser and more expensive fine-grained foam, from which the protection of the computer system unit is made.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

When xylene is added to the jar, the foam dissolves almost completely, the viscosity of the composition becomes less, and the thick lump disappears. A composition of this viscosity can be applied in a much thinner layer. It looks like xylene is better for making foam varnish.
Note: I was also advised to use solvent 647, but I didn’t have it on hand.
I'll try using xylene as a wood varnish. I take a walnut branch peeled from the bark and apply a thin layer of the composition with a brush.It turns out very well, but you have to wait for the varnish to dry.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

I also apply a layer of composition onto the concrete with a brush. The layer turns out to be very thin and there are no air bubbles in it. I leave it to dry.
My first section did not dry completely within an hour - a film with a very large number of bubbles formed on the surface.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

Huge bubbles formed on the sides. To the touch it looks like the well-known packaging film with bubbles. However, as an option, this composition can be used after complete drying.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

The area covered with xylene varnish turned out better. The composition is well absorbed into the surface of the concrete and looks like real varnish. The only negative is the high cost of xylene compared to gasoline.
Foam varnish for painting concrete floors

To reduce the cost, you can first dissolve the foam in gasoline, and only then add xylene and achieve the desired viscosity. It will be inexpensive to prepare a composition based on bottled xylene, which is sold in cans and costs less.
Note: the composition dried on wood in 10 minutes and is indistinguishable from real varnish. In the future, for an experiment, I can take a board polished on a machine from a nearby furniture workshop and apply 3-4 layers of xylene varnish to it.

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Comments (18)
  1. Guest Mikhail
    #1 Guest Mikhail Guests 18 August 2018 10:47
    4
    How's the durability going? And the firefighters couldn't be happier...
  2. Guest Yuri
    #2 Guest Yuri Guests 18 August 2018 12:09
    7
    For waterproofing, it is better to use liquid glass - it is cheaper and safer. Fuel and lubricants spilled on the floor will dissolve this napalm.
  3. Guest Oleg
    #3 Guest Oleg Guests 18 August 2018 15:36
    5
    Does the toxicity of xylene bother you?
  4. Guest Alexander
    #4 Guest Alexander Guests 18 August 2018 17:31
    4
    What if you try toluene instead of xylene?
    1. Pavel Alexandrovich
      #5 Pavel Alexandrovich Guests 2 April 2019 13:29
      1
      It is the same. It’s just that xylene is a little weaker, and toluene is not sold anywhere - it is a derivative of coke-chemical production.
  5. Kahn
    #6 Kahn Guests 18 August 2018 17:33
    3
    With xylene it’s not so simple - that xylene in a glass bottle dissolved the foam quickly and without lumps, resulting in a normal protective film. We bought 2 x 10 liters of GOST, but it doesn’t really melt - the foam turns into a chewing gum-like lump and is difficult to smear.
    So it has its own characteristics
  6. Guest Sergey
    #7 Guest Sergey Guests 18 August 2018 18:03
    8
    Previously, solvents 646 and 647 were made of two components (I don’t remember which ones offhand), the difference was in the ratio. They dissolved not just nitro paints - even many plastics of the thermoplastic class (such as homemade glue). Now these brands sell a mixture of all sorts of rubbish, a completely inactive solvent. It is still possible to liquefy nitro paint, but it is not possible to dissolve dried paint. I tried adding it to epoxy - it delaminates after a few minutes. With continuous stirring, I still used epoxy. Now the only active “evil” solvent left is acetone.
    1. 123
      #8 123 Guests 27 August 2021 22:32
      0
      And acetone is not acetone at all now.I used to buy Ufa acetone bottled in beer bottles at the market, so it would eat everything it could, even destroying old paint. And a couple of years ago I bought branded acetone in a store, so it doesn’t even wash off fresh paint. It’s good that xylene was in stock, otherwise there would have been nothing to wash the paint sprayer with.
  7. Felix
    #9 Felix Guests 19 August 2018 10:38
    9
    Not just a stupid, but a very dangerous experiment. Here someone took care of the toxicity of xylene. So xylene compared to styrene is just milk.
  8. Igor56
    #10 Igor56 Guests August 20, 2018 06:33
    2
    I need to repair a slate roof (problem areas) how will it work out?
  9. Paul
    #11 Paul Guests 20 August 2018 23:18
    4
    I dissolved the foam with solvent R4A, it dissolves perfectly into varnish and turns into varnish, then I pulled a beautiful cloth onto the board, poured the varnish, and it hardened. It turned out cool, but unfortunately one day I put a hot kettle on the table and a ribbed imprint remained from the bottom ---- it doesn’t hold the temperature!!!!!! !!!!!
  10. connoisseur
    #12 connoisseur Guests August 21, 2018 02:27
    3
    Polystyrene foam in acetone, + plasticizer Dibutyl phthalate - THIS is an excellent glue and varnish!
    and foam in gasoline is napalm! one of the recipes.