The Complete Polished Concrete Guide: From First Cut to Final Polish

Here at Unicorn Diamond Co, we want to ensure that our clients have the knowledge they require to use our tooling to its optimal potential. Concrete is an unpredictable variant that can heavily influence your diamond toolings cutting and consumption rates and we’re here to make sure you’re getting that ‘bang for your buck’. We have built these tools over many years and tried them countless times to ensure that what we produce is what those on site actually need. Whilst our technicians can help you on a job to job basis, we have created a full polished concrete system guide out of these diamonds to suit the first timers to the highly experience concrete polishing connoisseurs. 

First cut:

Achieving your desired exposure levels 25 or 30 grit diamonds to achieve a medium to full exposure. 25 grit diamonds are used on very hard concrete whilst 30 grit diamonds can be used on softer concrete. Your bond should also change dependant on the concrete strength - a softer bond will cut faster but will ware at a faster rate. e.g. 25 grit very very soft bond is the most aggressive diamond so will cut the fastest but will ware the quickest.This is the most important stage to learn your diamonds to ensure you’re getting the best value for your money. Unsure what to cut with on your slab? Ask our team. 

Scratch removal:

Removing your aggressive scratches from first cut 60 or 80 grit diamonds are used to remove the scratches that have been created through your first cut. These diamonds will create scratches themselves but should be finer and much easier to remove as you work down your grits. Think of your scratch removal as like working through your grits on wood with sandpaper - We’re not trying to have no scratches at all at this stage, were just removing the previous ones with finer ones. 

Grouting:

Pinhole filling As you have now opened up the concrete slab, fine pinholes will likely be present that were sitting below the concretes surface. We recommend the use of a 50 or 100 grit hybrid puck (diamond impregnated resins) with the use of some water and an even, thin coat of your chosen concrete glue. Run the pucks on your machine and ‘massage’ in the glue which will pick up the fine dust particles as you go. Continue to pass over the floor with your machine until the pinholes have been filled and any excess material has been removed. Your floor should now have only very fine scratches created by the hybrids and all diamond scratches should be removed. 

Densifying:

Hardening the surface Apply your hardener of choice to the floor to lock in the grout you have just applied and to give yourself a solid foundation to polish on. 

Polishing: