Spiked Roller for Epoxy Floor Bubbles
De-aerating spike roller
The pass that lets the trapped air out
A spike roller is a roller covered in long nylon spikes, run across freshly poured epoxy to release the air trapped during mixing. It has to be used within the resin’s short open time. Air that stays in cures as pinholes, which weaken the floor and let liquids through to the slab.
Mixing carries air into the resin however carefully it is done. Poured onto the floor, that air rises. It has a few minutes to reach the surface and break before the film stiffens over the top of it.
A spike roller run across the wet film opens a path for it. Nylon spikes, long enough to reach the slab through the film, on a wide frame and a pole.
A window, not a step
This has to happen within the open time: for most systems under ten minutes from the pour, less in Nairobi heat. Rolled too late, the spikes drag the surface instead of piercing it and leave a worse floor than not rolling at all.
It is the one operation on a resin floor with a hard deadline, which is why pour sizes are planned around it rather than around the working day.
Pinholes
Trapped air that never got out cures as a pinhole: a small open void through the film. Individually invisible, collectively a matte cast across the floor, and every one of them is a place where water, oil or cleaning chemicals reach the slab and start lifting the coating from underneath.
Without itPinholes. Thousands of them, each one a place the floor can be lifted from later.
What to ask
Ask how big each pour section will be and how that was decided. If the answer is not about open time, nobody has thought about the roller.
Where it is used
Day 02 of the job, the pour, on decorative epoxy, flake floors, quartz broadcast and repairs & recoats.
Questions people ask
How do you get air bubbles out of epoxy flooring?
Mix at low speed so less air goes in, then run a spike roller across the wet resin soon after it is spread, so the bubbles can rise and break. On clear and decorative pours a quick pass of heat over the surface is sometimes used as well. Bubbles still there when the resin stiffens stay in the floor.
What causes pinholes in an epoxy floor?
Air trapped during mixing, and air rising out of the concrete itself, known as outgassing, which is worse on a warming slab or one that was not primed properly. Priming seals the concrete and spike rolling releases air from the resin. Missing either leaves small open voids in the cured surface.
When should you use a spike roller on epoxy?
Straight after the resin is spread, while it is still fluid. The window depends on the product and the temperature, and it is shorter in hot weather. Rolled too late, the spikes drag the surface and leave marks instead of letting the air out.