Today was the first day of our epoxy project at the Bryan, Ohio VFW building.  We’ve already completed several projects in this building (epoxy – vinyl flake in the basement kitchen last December and other polymer cement resurfacing applications upstairs seven or eight years ago) and today was the start of another one.

We’re continuing on in the basement from where we left off in the kitchen last year and we’re working on their banquet hall.  After first stopping at the local tool rental place to pick-up a tile stripper, we arrived at the VFW at about 9:30 this morning and we quickly discovered that the tile stripper was about useless on this project.  We had to use our metal tile scrappers and do it by hand (although I did find the heavy tile stripper useful to use as sort of a jack-hammer to remove some of the tile that was extremely tough – had to break my back and pick-up the heavy piece of equipment to accomplish it – ouch!).

Many hours of scrapping tile (stuck tenaciously to the floor by thick and decades-old, black tile mastic) and several blisters later, we had all of the tile off.  We then had the fun task of shoveling-up the broken and loose tiles into garbage cans, carrying them up stairs and across a long parking lot to put into the dumpster (should have brought those carts I left in my garage for situations like these!).

Didn’t start grinding off the black mastic until around 4 pm and gave-up at little after 6 pm.  We were hoping to get all of the prep work done on the first day, but as things usually go, it looks like it’s turning into a two-day prep job.  Here’s a few pictures from today: