11/10/2023 0 Comments Large area broom finish concrete![]() Aluminum-backed brooms don’t warp, crack, or dry out in the sun like wood might, and they can be lighter than wood too. Marshalltown recently added three aluminumbacked brooms to its catalog. Horsehair bristles are more flexible, Bower says. The hair is embedded in a reinforced base that is molded around each strand. Wagman Metal Products sells hand-finishing brooms with either plastic fiber bristles or natural horsehair. “With soft bristles, you may barely see the brush strokes.” On the other hand, a stiffer brush may help make a decorative swirl finish stand out. Softer brushes will give you a nicer, more aesthetically pleasing finish, Cook says, making them a solid choice where a lot of roughness isn’t needed but looks are important. ![]() In warmer areas, a soft bristle will create all the traction the end user is likely to need. In areas where winter ice coats sidewalks and driveways, contractors must be especially rough on surfaces to ward off accidents. “The contractor buys a broom based on the kind of finish he’s looking for,” he says.Ĭontractors in colder parts of the country often favor stiffer bristles, Cook says. The stiffer the bristle, the rougher the surface, says Steve Cook, sales and marketing manager for Kraft Tool Co. Stiffer bristles are used for a rougher finish or when concrete has started to cure.Ĭontractors prize the aggressive texturing of a stiffer brush when slip resistance is more important than appearance, such as on a ramp. Softer bristles are used when a contractor is getting on the floor sooner. “A strong, consistent bristle makes a great broom.” “The bottom line is that the quality of bristle drives the quality of the broom,” says Strawn. The most important characteristic of each concrete brush and broom is the bristle itself. There are differences within this niche market too. “If you use the ends of the bristles on a slab, it pulls away the cream and exposes the aggregate.” What’s more, finishing brooms such as Marion Brush’s are designed to texture with the sides of bristles rather than the ends, Bolden says. “It digs into the slab, and doesn’t make it as uniform or as level,” Bolden says. It’s rougher than needed.”Ī push broom will also be too heavy compared to a finishing broom. “A lot of times a push broom exposes aggregate. There are five or six rows of bristle tufts on a push broom, compared to only two rows on a finishing brush, he says. The standard push broom is too stiff and has too much body to make a good finishing broom, says Gary Bolden, president of Marion Brush Manufacturing Co. “You want to finish, but you don’t want to dig into the surface.” “With a finishing broom, you don’t want it too stiff,” says Robert Bower, marketing manager at Wagman Metal Products Inc. While a typical broom is attached to a handle that is fixed in place, a concrete broom may be bolted to its handle with a “clevis adapter” so it can be adjusted for pitch.įinally, the typical bristles used in a concrete broom will be softer than those of a standard broom, although the coarsest concrete brooms can be rougher, Strawn says. The connection between the broom and its handle can be different too. “You’re actually texturing, not working to clean up the concrete.” Consistent bristles mean a more consistent finish, he says. The bristles of concrete finishing brooms have more consistent lengths and shapes than those of ordinary brooms, says John Strawn, product manager at Marshalltown Co. ![]() They have unique properties that make them specifically suited for putting a textured finish on a slab. “It depends on how quickly the concrete is setting up,” he says.īut while brooming is as simple as sweeping, finishing brushes and brooms are not ordinary cleaning brooms. The tool should be pulled with light pressure appropriate to the job. The broom’s bristles should be held at a 45- degree angle to the surface, says John Wight, vice president of sales at Bon Tool Co. Photographs courtesy of Kraft Tool Company Less frequently, they swirl the broom for a “swirl finish,” which looks nicer but requires more work. For a “broom finish,” contractors pull a broom across the slab, preferably at a right angle to anticipated traffic. There’s not much of a secret in how a concrete broom is used, either. The shallow, grooved texture left on the surface by a concrete broom or brush will help keep shoes and tires from slipping or skidding on a wet or icy slab. Photograph courtesy of Wagman metal Products, Inc.Ĭoncrete contracting doesn’t usually lend itself to sweeping generalizations, but here’s a good one: If a contractor wants to give a curing concrete slab more slip resistance, the easiest, simplest solution is to drag a broom across it.
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