The 3rd annual International Concrete Polishing & Staining Conference (ICPSC) in Atlanta was Aztec’s first. Traditionally Aztec has only gone to the larger shows with more attendees, but since the successful launching of Aztec’s new concrete polishing line of machines, we decided to give this conference a shot. Unlike the ISSA or World of Concrete (WOC) shows where there are 15,000+ attendees, the ICPSC had only about 300. However at this conference every one of them was interested in polished concrete, and therefore was a potential customer.
The ICPSC was a very successful show for Aztec. In spite of all of the accelerants and hardeners put in trade show concrete slabs, we managed to get our 10×15 concrete slab cut and polished very quickly with our new UltraGrind machine. Some competitors (who shall remain unnamed) had a much harder job of opening up their floor. Some even resorted to riding on their machines to generate additional weight.
After we got the floor polished with the diamonds, we hit it with our new dust control burnisher, which really brought up the shine. It worked so well that we ended up lending it to 3-4 other competitors to get their shine up. You can see a picture of the floor with our logo reflecting in the floor, check it out on our Facebook page. The crazy thing is we got this level of shine only going to 800 grit.
The other great thing about the Aztec buffer was how fast it heated up the concrete. An infrared thermometer revealed that our new dust control buffer increased the floor temperature by 10 degrees per pass. We actually got the floor up to 127 degrees. This is significant because heat is a necessary ingredient to optimize many guard products.
People also liked the idea of the VCT crossover products that Aztec manufactures. The Guzzler is made to pick up floor wax slurry on a VCT tile floor, but works really well on concrete slurry too. The Grand Finale was designed to apply floor wax quickly and evenly to large VCT tile floors, but works great for densifier and guard products.
Last but certainly not least, Aztec was able to hire Skip Edwards as a new manufacturer’s rep for concrete polishing equipment. Skip has extensive experience with concrete over the years and is currently also a rep with Ameripolish. He will be covering concrete products sales in CA, NV, AZ and HI for Aztec.
It was not all work at the ICPSC either. Steven, Whit, Joe and Skip were able to catch a Phillies – Braves game on Friday night. The Phillies win was punctuated by a Grand Slam homerun by Jimmy Rollins.
We are now looking forward to the ISSA Jan/San show November in Orlando and the World of Concrete Expo January in Las Vegas. At the World of Concrete, we will have a 20ft x 30ft outdoor slab where you can try all of our machines for yourself. Please come and visit!
