Bought a $40 power trowel float plate and it gummed up in 20 minutes

I grabbed a cheap float plate off Amazon last Tuesday for a 400 square foot garage pour and the damn thing started dragging wet concrete right away. Ended up spending an extra hour hand finishing because it left grooves everywhere. Anyone got a brand of float plates that actually sheds clean on cooler pours?

3 comments

3 Comments

singh.harper15d ago

Man, did you wet the plate before the first pass? I've noticed a lot of those cheap ones come dry as a bone and just grab everything unless you spray them down first.

nina_hall4815d ago

Wait, you're supposed to wet them first? I mean, I always just ran the plate dry under the hood and figured that's how it worked. But now that you mention it, the couple times I tried those cheap ones it did feel like they were grabbing every little piece of dust and hair. I kinda just thought I was bad at it or something. Maybe it's just me, but I've been stubborn about it and never thought to spray it down. Honestly, this makes a lot of sense, like how you'd wet a sponge before using it. I'll definitely give it a try next time, because my last print came out looking like a mess with those tiny specks all over it.

hannah_wells15d ago

Wait, you mean you've been running them dry this whole time? Oh man, I did the exact same thing for months and thought it was just me being clumsy or something. But yeah, those cheap ones are basically dust magnets when they're dry. They'll grab every little piece of lint and hair in the room. I started wetting mine with a spray bottle right before I run the first pass and it's a total game changer. The prints come out way cleaner now.