No, the burnishing begins after application of the stain guard. If you contact Scotty at Legacy Industrial, he can walk you through the procedures, including what type of pads to use. Also, make sure that you use an actual floor burnisher and not a floor maintainer. Burnishers turn at a higher RPM which is required to get the intended results.

Thanks for your reply, one more question. Is the burnishing done after the Densifier sets for a week? Then apply a stainguard? Thanks

Hi B. What you can do is apply a lithium densifier first as stated above. This will help to fill up some of the pores if the concrete is a bit porous. You then have to wait a week for the densifier to react. You can then apply the stain guard. Stain guards have to go on thin, not heavy. You don’t let product pool. As long as you follow the directions properly, you should not have any issue with a white powder effect.

Hi Fred. HD40 uses a silane/siloxane mix as the primary sealing ingredients. In addition, the co-polymer blend of lithium and other ingredients allows for the gloss when buffing. The addition of lithium is very small and used primarily to prevent a whitening effect on the floor (reaction to carbon dioxide) if too much is applied and allowed to sit before buffing.

You have two main choices in concrete densifiers – Lithium or sodium (not silane). Lithium concrete densifiers are primarily used today for a variety of reasons, two of which is that they are easier to apply and require much less product than the sodium densifiers in order to get the same results. Sodium densifiers also require scrubbing of the product to work into the concrete whereas lithium does not.

Silane and siloxane are very small molecule sealers and work very well when applied on top of concrete that was treated with a densifier. This is why they are the main ingredient in HD40. HD40 is typically applied last in the final stages of polishing when other densifiers have already been applied during the process. Technically, silane and siloxane cause a reaction in the concrete that will make it slightly harder. However, it’s not nearly as effective as a true densifier. The silane/siloxane mix is why HD40 is only recommended for a machine finished floor. The machine troweling effectively creates very small pores that are harder to penetrate. If applied to a standard troweled floor, most of the product would penetrate too deep or require multiple applications to work effectively.

If your ultimate goal is to make your concrete surface harder, then you will want to treat it with a standard lithium densifier first. You can then apply the HD40 over that for further sealing protection and to buff to a shine if like. If you feel the concrete surface is plenty hard already, then just apply the HD40. I hope that clears things up and answers your questions.