Contactors, how often have you heard that comment from your customers? Flooring contractors are asked to perform the texture balancing act on almost every installation. To help meet our customer’s flooring texture needs, ROCK-TRED sells a wide variety of anti-slip aggregates and broadcast media. ROCK-TRED offers media including angular and rounded natural or colored quartz in different sizes, soft EPDM rubber granules, plastic and glass beads and high wear aluminum oxide.
To create the most durable, hard wearing and long-lasting anti-slip textures in our coating systems, ROCK-TRED recommends using white aluminum oxide as a broadcast media. White aluminum oxide is recommended over standard quartz aggregate to create texture due to its extreme hardness. It is the second hardest mineral after diamond and, therefore, is much more difficult to wear down, break or crush under heavy traffic. Other benefits include its angular shape and its ability to resist heat and corrosion. Also, unlike natural quartz, white aluminum oxide becomes clear and practically disappears when broadcast into a wet coating.
ROCK-TRED stocks 10 pound and 50 pound units of white aluminum oxide aggregate ranging in size from very aggressive 16 mesh to extremely fine 240 mesh powder. The most commonly used sizes are 46 and 60 mesh aluminum oxide. These two sizes are typically used to produce light to medium levels of anti-slip texture in areas for manufacturing, food/pharmaceutical processing plants and auto service centers/garages. More aggressive sizes such as 16 and 30 mesh are most often used where better traction is needed in wash down areas, inclined vehicular traffic ramps and wet processing areas. Our fine 100 mesh is more difficult to broadcast due to its light weight, but can effectively be used to produce very light textures in thin mil coatings. Our superfine 240 mesh powder cannot be effectively broadcast, but can be mixed into one gallon of liquids at up to 12 oz. by weight to significantly boost the abrasion resistance of the coating. Adding the 240 mesh powder works best with CHEM-THANE 509 or CHEM-THANE WB since these coatings cure to only 2-4 DFT which prevents the powder from becoming buried under the coating. The 240 mesh powder will not only create a highly abrasion resistant surface, but it will also leave a less glossy surface.
