The Shed – September-October 2019

(singke) #1

Product test


B


illionaire entrepreneur and serial
disrupter Elon Musk stunned the car
world in March this year when he
announced that he was closing all Tesla
shops which sold the battery-powered
Tesla car in the US. When queried about
t h i s (te mp or a r y a s it t u r ned out) dec i sion,
the car-maker was quoted as saying, “It’s


  1. People want to buy things online.”
    Businessman Tony Gibbs of Hamilton
    is following this philosophy with his
    internet-based chemical products store
    Surface Protection Ltd. He suggested that
    The Shed use his concrete sealing product
    RQDVKHGÁRRU


7KHÁRRUVHDOHUWKDW7RQ\UHFRPPHQGHG
is Siloxa-Tek 8510 which is made by the
American company Ghostshield. On the
label it says that Siloxa-Tek 8510 is a
solvent-based silane/siloxane engineered
to reduce water and moisture intrusion
DQGUHVLVWVWDLQLQJIURPRLODQGÁXLGV
7KLVLVH[DFWO\ZKDWWKHFRQFUHWHÁRRURI
my shed needed.

Shed-floor challenges
A large carton was outside my front
door a few days later — 9kg of advanced
chemistry arriving by courier.
My hope is that this product will

prevent staining of the concrete by oil,
rusty water, or engine coolant. Shed
ÁRRUVDUHDFKDOOHQJLQJHQYLURQPHQWWR
seal with a coating for several reasons.
Concrete doesn’t link particularly well to
coatings, solvents used in the shed can
degrade the coating, and hot tyres can
bond strongly to the coating causing it to
be ripped off when the tyre moves. This
last is called ‘hot-tyre pick-up’ (HTP) and
is a very common problem with painted
VKHGÁRRUV
One of my friends has kicked the whole
HTP problem into the too-hard basket.
He uses a relatively cheap single-pot f

By Ritchie Wilson
Photographs: Ritchie Wilson

A SHEDDIE PUTS A FLOOR SEALER TO
THE TEST IN HIS WORKSPACE

SIMPLY


SEALED

Free download pdf