Hi Terry. OK, it’s what we guessed the problem was then. Not enough of the coating was applied (thick enough) once you got away from the perimeter of the garage. When you applied the second coat, the thin areas became thick enough and the full color richness evened out as it should. This is the number one complaint that people have with RockSolid. We discuss this in our review of RockSolid here. We also discuss it in our video that compares EpoxyShield and RockSolid. You can see that here. We discuss it in the last 1/3rd of the video.

I used Rust-Oleum Rock Solid dark gray and it was 10 shades darker the first several feet near the concrete wall where I started rolling. After it dried I was able to inspect the thickness of the coat from the dark area to the light area and it was unable to see any difference. After talking to a customer service rep at R-O I was advised that perhaps the bag was not mixed enough and that the only thing to get the color consistent would be to put a coat on top of the existing one so I did. This time I made sure I mixed the pouch twice as long as the directions indicated and put another coat on top. Doing so corrected the color problem but now i will have to do the same process to the other side of my garage to get the texture to match which is an expensive solution but its far better than to have the original color mismatched near the walls

Hello Terry. No, you can’t apply a second coat of the same color to make it lighter. We don’t know what coating you used, but resin does not react to moisture by turning darker. Moisture causes a variety of problems with coatings depending what was used, but color change is not one of them. A color from a single mix batch can’t get darker either, but it can appear lighter if not applied thick enough. The concrete affects the color of the first coat if it’s too thin. It may be that the areas near the border have the correct amount of coating applied (or more than needed) and the rest of the floor does not. The number one rule of coatings is that you don’t stretch the coverage rate. Did you measure out on the floor how much square footage the first batch should cover?

Thank you Shea for your quick response. Have a great day.

Hello Ken. RockSolid would not be our first choice for coating such a large floor. If you run into problems with it laying down too thin for a single color coat (loss of gloss and rich color tone), it’s going to require another coat to fix the problem (2x the original cost). We would recommend 4 2.5 car kits based on the poor coverage rates RockSolid is known for. That’s 8 individual batches applied at no greater than 200 square feet per batch.

In order to ensure color uniformity, it would require cutting the corner of the colored resin pouch for each kit to combine and lightly mix in one large bucket. For each full batch you mix to apply, cut the corner of the hardener pouch for each kit, pour it into a clean bucket, and then add a measured quantity of the colored resin. However, you can use the same measuring container for each batch of colored resin you add. We don’t remember how many ounces are in the colored resin pouch, but it should be printed on the pouch. If not, call Rust-Oleum. Also, the industry standard is for the colored resin to be Part-A. However, Rust-Oleum labels it as Part-B for some products so double-check. Always use a clean bucket for mixing each new batch and mix for 2-3 minutes. It’s highly recommended to have one person mixing while another is applying it to the floor. This ensures that you will keep a wet edge going and create overlap marks from taking too much time between batches. This article on color uniformity explains more.