SimironDiamonds
Match the diamond to the concrete you have.
Metal-bond grinding segments for Ripon prep days, fitted to the slab under your feet and the grinder in your truck. Tell us how hard the concrete is and what is stuck to it, and we will send the bond that keeps cutting.
A soft garage slab and a hard warehouse slab want opposite bonds.
Diamond segments hold their diamonds in a metal bond, and everything comes down to how fast that bond wears away. The rule runs backward from what most people guess. Hard concrete wants a soft bond, and soft concrete wants a hard one.
Think about two floors around Ripon. One is a garage slab in a newer house, softer concrete that sometimes carries a slick, trowel-burned skin on top that has to be broken through before the real cutting starts. The other is a power-troweled floor in a packing shed or warehouse, dense from top to bottom. Put the warehouse bond on the garage and the segments chew themselves away. Put the garage bond on the warehouse and the diamonds glaze over and skate across the surface without opening anything.
You will know within the hour if the match is wrong. Either the segments are visibly shrinking or the machine is humming along with almost no dust coming off it. A well-matched set carries you through several garages, while the wrong one can be spent before you reach the far wall of the first. That is why every segment order starts with questions about your slab.
Hard concrete, soft bond. Soft concrete, hard bond.
From the catalog
On the shelf for this job
Ripon
Fresh segments, eighteen miles from the job.
Ripon is a Highway 99 town on the north bank of the Stanislaus River, with almond orchards on every side and the San Joaquin county line running along the water. From our Tracy bench it is roughly eighteen road miles, so swapping to a different bond in the middle of a job is one drive away.
Full detail on the set lives on the site-wide diamond grinding segments page, and the Ripon supply page covers everything else we send to town. Once the slab is open, the next order is often a barrier, and the moisture vapor barrier page for Ripon walks through testing first. Send dates and machine details through the contact page.
Taking off an old coating is a different cut than opening bare concrete.
Opening bare concrete is the job these segments are built around. You take off the cream and any trowel skin and leave a clean, open profile in the CSP 2 to 3 range, which is what a resin needs to key into. For most coating prep a medium metal bond gets you there without leaving gouges that telegraph through the finish.
Pulling up an old coating, a sealer or a layer of mastic is a different job. The diamonds are fighting soft, gummy material that loads them up, where bare concrete keeps wearing the bond and exposing fresh cutting edges. The right setup depends on what the material is and how thick it sits, so tell us what is on the floor before you order. If the answer is a heavy coating over a big floor, we may suggest a removal crew first and a rental for the final profile.
Either way, skip the acid. Acid etching is not prep, and every data sheet for the systems we sell asks for a mechanical profile. That profile is the starting point whether the slab is getting a quartz broadcast, a chip floor from our decorative flake blend line, or a clear UV-stable polyaspartic topcoat over color.
“The coating bonds to the profile, and the profile comes from the diamonds.”
Fit the segments to your machine, then hook up the vacuum.
We stock the common mounts, and the grinders we rent take these exact segments. If you own your machine, tell us the make and the mount before you order and we will confirm fit, so nothing shows up that will not bolt on. If you do not own one, our concrete grinder rental page covers the machines that go out from the bench, and the segments leave on the same trip already fitted.
Then hook up a dust extractor and leave it running. Grinding concrete dry throws fine silica dust into the air and onto every surface in the room, and whatever settles back onto the slab ends up under your base coat. We rent extractors alongside the grinders. Run one on every pass, vacuum the floor clean when the grind is done, test for moisture, and only then open the first kit. If you want to see what that prep turns into, the catalog shows finished floors.
Reading the segments halfway across the floor.
Segments wear while you work, and a set that was cutting well at the door can be spent by the back wall. Check them on purpose, before the floor tells you the hard way.
Watch what the extractor is pulling
A steady stream of fine dust into the hose means the diamonds are cutting. When the dust thins out and the machine starts riding on top of the slab, stop and look at the tooling before you blame the concrete.
Tip the machine and look at the faces
Healthy segments show diamond points standing proud of the metal. Smooth, shiny faces mean the bond is too hard for this slab and has glazed. Segments shrinking fast and wearing unevenly mean the bond is too soft.
Rake a work light across a test patch
Clear a patch with the vacuum and set a work light on the floor so it skims the surface. You are looking for open pores and an even scratch everywhere. Any shiny islands mean the profile has gone flat in that spot.
Swap before the profile goes flat
Change segments the moment they stop cutting cleanly. Another pass on dead diamonds only polishes the concrete you are trying to open. On a big floor keep a spare set in the truck, and if the slab surprised you, call the bench before you swap so the next set is the right bond.
Segment questions before a Ripon prep day.
Which bond do I need for my slab?
Hard slabs take soft-bond segments and soft slabs take hard bonds. Run the wrong one and you either glaze the diamonds or eat them in an hour. Tell us the age of the slab, how it was finished and what is sitting on it, and we will match the bond.
Will these segments fit my grinder?
We stock the common mounts, and the grinders we rent take these exact segments. Give us the make and model of your machine before you order and we will confirm the fit, so nothing arrives at the job that will not bolt on.
How many garages will one set handle?
It depends on how hard the slab is and how well the bond matches it. A matched set handles several garages. A mismatched set can be finished before the first one is. That is the whole reason we ask about your concrete before we pack anything.
What profile should I leave for a coating?
Most coatings want a CSP 2 to 3 profile: clean, open concrete that a resin can key into, without gouges deep enough to telegraph through the finish. A medium metal bond gets most coating prep there. Tell us the system going on top and we will confirm.
Can I acid etch instead of grinding?
Not if you want the floor to stay down. Acid etching is not prep. Every data sheet for the systems we sell asks for a mechanical profile, and that profile is what the base coat actually bonds to. The grind decides whether everything after it holds.
Can I get segments and a grinder on the same trip?
Yes. Grinders and dust extractors rent from the Tracy bench, and the segments go out fitted to the machine. Ripon crews usually pick up the whole prep setup in one stop, and the coating can be staged for the same trip if you are ordering it from us too.
Where the bench sits, and who it answers to.
Exclusive Resin Supply runs out of Tracy, and we keep our feet in the community around it. We hold a seat in the Lathrop Chamber of Commerce and sponsor Lathrop Little League and the Junior Spartans. The owner started the business so installers could skip the costly mistakes he made learning this trade, and the prep advice on this page comes from those same floors.
Every set leaves the bench matched to a slab.
Get in touch
Tell us what you're pouring.
Anything from one bucket to a standing wholesale account, pickup or freight, or a seat in training. A person who has poured this material reads every message.
- (209) 208-4656
- chris@exclusiveresinsupply.com
- 392 W Larch Rd, Suite 11, Tracy, CA 95304
Grinding a slab in Ripon soon?
Call the bench with the slab and the machine, or ask the owner for a bond match before you load up.
Need it installed?
Our sister company, Exclusive Resins, installs epoxy, flake and metallic floors across the Central Valley, out of the same Tracy building.