Asphalt

HISTORY OF DECORATIVE
CONCRETE
The people and companies who started the decorative concrete
movement.
By Joe Nasvik
Between 1890 and 1920 many companies, especially precast companies who
produced members for building facades, used colors and stains to make their work
more interesting. Some mixed pigment into fresh concrete for a casting; others
submerged their castings in solutions similar to chemical stains. Some of these
creative and ingenious techniques are described in journals and publications from
that era, which can be viewed today at the Portland Cement Association (PCA)
library in Skokie, Ill.

The “fathers” of this industry were

 manufacturers of materials for contractors with quality controls in place to ensure a

consistent outcome time after time
 developers of tools or systems that allowed others to be involved in the creative
process, and
 innovators who developed specific techniques.

Joe Nasvik
Some were in the right place at the right time; others went through painstaking
research to develop products and processes. Today the decorative concrete market
is growing faster than any other segment of the concrete industry, with hundreds of
manufacturers and thousands of contractors. But none of this could have happened
if not for the development of strong, durable concrete. It takes highly skilled
concrete finishers and an understanding of concrete basics to install work that
makes owners want concrete.

Here are some of the people and companies that got us started.

Adding color to concrete

 L.M. Scofield CompanyLynn Scofield was the first to
manufacturer color hardeners and integral color for concrete, making a dependable
range of colors available to everyone.
We've known for a long time that metallic oxide colors aren't faded by ultraviolet
light. At the turn of the century, many concrete craftspeople were blending
pigments to color a specific application. Some kept recipe files for their color
formulas used on projects. But to increase the use of color required products that
were consistent batch after batch. Contractors wanted color admixtures that would
mix evenly in concrete and be permanently bonded in the cement paste. In 1915,
Lynn Mason Scofield started a business on Dearborn Street in Chicago that was
later renamed the L.M. Scofield Company. It was the first company to manufacture
color for concrete. His first products included color hardeners (cement, color, and
aggregate broadcast on the surface of fresh concrete to color and harden the
surface), colorwax integral color, sealers, and chemical stains. In 1920 he moved
the company to Los Angeles, believing that southern California was a better market
for decorative concrete than the rest of the country. Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx,
Mary Pickford, and other famous people used large amounts of his products when
they built their homes.

Stamping patterns
Brad Bowman caused significant interest in decorative concrete with his invention.
He developed and patented the tools and process for stamping patterns in concrete
flatwork. The genius of his work is that others could use his process to install their
own creative ideas.

As a contractor, Bowman installed exposed aggregate concrete walls and slabs in

Carmel, Calif. By 1950 he began experimenting with ways to pattern his work. He
first tried a single wooden blade, then two blades set apart the width of a brick, and
finally platform stamps that imprinted several pattern units at a time. His first
stamps were of wood, then sheet metal, and finally cast aluminum platforms. In
1970, the Bomanite Corp., using his patents, franchised contractors across the
United States to install decorative concrete using this process. Bowman's
fascination was with the creative process—a passion that stayed with him until his
death at age 90.

In 1956 Bill Stegmeier, owner of the Stegmeier Co., began installing his company's
“Cool Deck” process for swimming pool decks—a finish that kept bare feet from
getting too hot on sunny days. By adding color to a powder broadcast onto the
surface, he achieved an antiquing effect. But it turned out that this “release powder”
also kept texture stamps from sticking to the concrete. So Stegmeier invented a
latex rubber tool to impart a wood grain texture to fresh concrete.
 Joe NasvikIn the late 1970s Jon Nasvik invented a urethane
stamp that imprinted both texture and pattern.
Bowman's cast aluminum tools were heavy, had a limited life, and printed only
patterns, not textures. Jon Nasvik became the first to develop urethane stamps that
were light and long-lived. In the late 1970s he built a plastic stamp that imprinted
both pattern and texture on fresh concrete. The first pattern for commercial use
was a broken used brick pattern. The patterns that followed were used by Bomanite
contractors exclusively and were called “Bomacron.” Stegmeir's release powder
made it possible to use these stamps.

Around this same time The Disney Corporation was designing EPCOT in Orlando
and wanted unusual decorative concrete patterns for the project. It liked Bomacron
and commissioned the development of the first 12 to 15 patterns. Today textured,
patterned stamps are the standard.

Chemical stains
In the early 1900s some precasters colored their castings by submerging them in
chemical stains. But Gilbert Stanley Underwood, an architect who designed several
National Park buildings, is probably the first person to use them on flatwork. For
his Yosemite Valley Awhanee Hotel project in 1927, he sent letters to the contractor
with directions to purchase certain chemicals, mix them with water, and apply them
to all the ground level floors throughout the building. The installation was very
successful, and the floors remain in good condition today. But it was L.M. Scofield
who converted single-use recipes to manufactured “ready to use” products, making
them reliable and available to everyone. Chemical stains were one of Scofield's first
manufactured products before 1920. Use of unique chemical stains was popular in
public buildings and luxury homes from 1920 to 1940.
 Joe NasvikMike Miller encouraged owners and specifiers to
appreciate the variability of chemical stains and made it a popular coloring method.
Before 1980, specifiers often expected flat, opaque colors like paint, resulting in
many disputes between specifiers and contractors. Mike Miller, the concretist,
Benicia, Calif., was among the first to maximize the variability of stain colors and
demonstrate the idea. He found ways to use stains artistically and inspired
designers to be more creative, thus leading the current resurgence in popularity for
chemical staining.

Overlay cement

Gilbert Stanley Underwood used chemical stains in several

National Park buildings, providing recipes to contractors; Scofield began
manufacturing stains at the same time.
Credit for inventing overlay cement goes to John (Jack) Crossfield. In 1938, while
an employee of Armstrong Cork in England, he applied for a patent with the title
“Plastic Composition.” He mixed natural rubber latex with portland cement,
aggregate, and other materials to make an overlay cement coating for steel ship
decks to provide both traction and corrosion protection. His patent didn't come
through until 1941, and by that time, due to World War II, latex had become scarce,
so the company, now Crossfield Products located in the United States, went on to
experiment with polymer resins.

In 1971 Les Stambaugh wondered about the possibility of spraying polymer cement
through a hopper gun and then knocking down the spatter with a trowel to finish a
swimming pool deck. His idea worked, and he later started the Superdek company
in Phoenix, which became Sundek.

Today, the use of overlay cement for decorative purposes is growing. It can be
mixed with color, sprayed on concrete slabs, and “troweled down” in thin
applications. It can be manufactured to be self-leveling for floors and vertical
surface finishes, and used for stamping and texturing concrete patterns. Its creative
potential seems to be limitless.

Paper stencil patterning

The story is told that in 1978 Gerald Brasseaux placed concrete for a patio in
Abbeville, La., late in the season. The weather was cold, and the concrete set slowly.
As he waited to begin final finishing, leaves fell onto the fresh concrete from a
nearby tree, and he was impressed by the patterns they made. This observation
eventually led to the development of a machine that would cut stencil patterns in
paper. Although initially he was unable to market his idea, his company Artcrete
eventually made it a popular decorative technique.

Crossfield ProductsJohn Crossfield holds the first patent for

an overlay cement material, but he sold it to Harold Patch (shown here) who
founded Crossfield Products, the first company to manufacture overlay cements in
the United States.
The process is simple. After placing concrete, workers carefully embed paper
stencils on the surface then broadcast color hardener, which is floated and finished.
When initial set occurs, the stencils are carefully removed, revealing tile, stone, and
brick patterns with plain concrete colored joints. The paper stencils can also be
used with overlay cement to decorate existing concrete slabs.
Concrete countertops

Buddy Rhodes StudiosBuddy Rhodes started the first

company to specialize in the construction and marketing of concrete countertops.
Using concrete to make counters, tables, and furniture isn't a new idea. It's
impossible to know who first built a counter with concrete, but the first business to
specialize in countertops was Buddy Rhodes Studios in the early 1980s. At first his
specialty was concrete furniture, but in 1984 he built a reception desk for a top
graphic designer in San Francisco. By 1986 he had his first contract to construct a
kitchen countertop. He began with both cast-in-place and precast work, but
gradually focused on precast counters. Today he is regarded as the father of
concrete countertops.

Formliners for architectural walls

In the early 1900s, intricate murals and graphics were cast in plaster and then
inserted into wall formwork. After placing concrete, workers broke out the plaster
to reveal the feature, destroying the formliner each time. Formliners that could be
used repeatedly came in the early 1960s when Buck Scott, now with Scott Systems,
used elastomeric urethanes to build multiple-use formliners, receiving a patent for
his idea. The first formliners he sold were 10 feet wide by 120 feet long and were
used by a precast company in the manufacturing of 200 concrete homes.

Scott SystemsBuck Scott, owner of Styro Materials Co.,

developed and patented reusable elastomeric urethane formliners; the company
later became Scott Systems.
The first masonry unit formliners that could be rotated to achieve random pattern
effects were invented and patented by Paul and Peter Nasvik.
Sandblast stenciling

BrickformAdapting technology from the advertising industry,

Glen Roman started a design and stencil cutting service to contractors when he
started working for Brickform.
Sandblasting patterns into vertical and horizontal concrete became popular
seventy-five years ago, but was painstaking work. There are many ways to make
stencils, but plastic sheet adhesive templates developed by Minnesota Mining for
the stone grave marker industry became the most useful for concrete. There are two
ways to use adhesive templates: adhering them to concrete surfaces and cutting
patterns out by hand, or using computer-assisted drawing software, common to the
advertising industry, to design patterns (which can be very complicated and
intricate), cutting them into the template material using computer-guided precision
plotters. Glen Roman, coming from the advertising industry, started a division at
the Brickform Company, Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., adapted the technology to
produce adhesive stencil patterns for decorative concrete.

Polishing concrete
Though polished terrazzo concrete floors have been popular for many years, tools
originally developed for stone surfacing and diamond polishing pads have now been
adapted for polishing concrete floors and countertops. Planetary head grinders with
diamond abrasive polishing pads are the tools being used. They cut fast, with
finishes as high as 3000 grit—compared with terrazzo finishes, which are typically
120 grit.

Concrete floors were first polished in Europe 15 years ago—mostly warehouse

floors—polished in an attempt to solve the problems created by epoxy coatings that
debonded due to concrete moisture issues, and to stop heavy maintenance bills.
HTC, a Swedish manufacturer of grinding equipment, introduced the idea to the
United States. The first known installation was a 40,000-square-foot warehouse
floor for the Bellagio in Las Vegas in 1999.

But the decorative possibilities were soon recognized and today there is a
significant market for commercial and residential polished floors and countertops.
There is much ongoing experimentation with color, embedded objects, chemical
stains, and exposed aggregates.

We've only scratched the surface

More contractors become involved with decorative concrete every day—and those
with creative minds are experimenting. At the “Artistry in Concrete”
demonstrations at the 2005 World of Concrete, half of the artists demonstrated
techniques and equipment that didn't even exist only a short time ago. If you know
of craftspeople or companies that you believe pioneered our industry, send their
names to Joe Nasvik at Concrete Construction for the next historical update.
 Stamped concrete is concrete that is patterned and/or textured or embossed to
resemble brick, slate, flagstone, stone, tile, wood, and various other patterns and textures.
Stamped concrete is commonly used for patios, sidewalks, driveways, pool decks, and
interior flooring. The ability of stamped concrete to resemble other building materials makes
stamped concrete a less expensive alternative to using those other authentic materials
such as stone, slate or brick.
There are three procedures used in stamped concrete which separate it from other
concrete procedures; the addition of a base color, the addition of an accent color, and
stamping a pattern into the concrete. These three procedures provide stamped concrete
with a color and shape similar to the natural building material. It also is longer-lasting than
paved stone, and still resembles the look.

Contents

 1Procedures
o 1.1Adding base color
o 1.2Adding accent color
o 1.3Stamping patterns
 2History
 3See also
Procedures[edit]
Adding base color[edit]
The base color is the primary color used in stamped concrete. The base color is chosen to
reflect the color of the natural building material. The base color is produced by adding a
color hardener to the concrete. Color hardener is a powder pigment used to dye the
concrete.
The color hardener can be applied using one of two procedures; integral color or cast-on
color. Integral color is the procedure where the entire volume of concrete is dyed the base
color. The entire volume of concrete is colored by adding the color hardener to the concrete
truck, and allowing all the concrete in the truck to be dyed. Cast-on color is the procedure
where the surface of the concrete is dyed the base color. The surface of the concrete is
colored by spreading the color hardener onto the surface of the wet concrete and floating
the powder into the top layer of the wet concrete.
Concrete can be colored in many ways; color hardener, integral liquid or powder, acid
stains to name a few. The process of integrally coloring the concrete offers the advantage
of the entire volume being colored; however, the surface strength is not increased as with
the use of color hardener. Dry shake color hardener is another popular way to color
concrete. You broadcast the hardener on the concrete as soon as it is floated for the first
time. After letting the bleed water soak into the hardener you float and trowel it in. This
method only covers the surface about 3/16 of an inch but it gives the concrete surface a
longer wear life.

Adding accent color[edit]

The accent color is the secondary color used in stamped concrete. The secondary color is
used to produce texture and show additional building materials (e.g. grout) in the stamped
concrete. The accent color is produced by applying color release to the concrete. Color
release has two purposes - 1) It is a pigment used to color the concrete and 2) It is a non-
adhesive used to prevent the concrete stamps from sticking to the concrete.
The color release can be applied in one of two procedures based on the two forms it is
manufactured in: powdered (cast-on color release made up of calcium-releasing powders
that repel water); or liquid - which is a light aromatic-based solvent, spray-on color release.
Cast-on color release is a procedure where the powder color release is applied by
spreading the color release on the surface of the concrete before the concrete is stamped.
Spray-on color release is a procedure where liquid color release is sprayed on the bottom
of the concrete stamps before the concrete is stamped.

Stamping patterns[edit]

Concrete being stamped with an Ashlar Slate pattern

The pattern is the shape of the surface of the stamped concrete. The pattern reflects the
shape of the natural building material. The pattern is made by imprinting
the concrete shortly after it has been poured with a "concrete stamp". Most modern
concrete stamps are made of polyurethane, but older "cookie cutter" style stamps were
made of various metals. The old style stamps lacked the capabilities of forming natural
stone texture.
Concrete stamping is the procedure which uses the concrete stamps to make the pattern in
the stamped concrete. Concrete stamps are placed on the concrete after the color release
has been applied. The concrete stamps are pushed into the concrete and then removed to
leave the pattern in the stamped concrete.
In most cases concrete stamping is made to look like ordinary building products such as
flagstone, brick, natural stone, etc.