Bumpy finish

Johnny Moon

Member
Jan 6, 2021
6
los alamitos ca
I am currently having a pool re-plastered with the Micro Fusion finish. When the PB demoed they went very deep and really left
a lot of huge divots. I wasn't worried and hoped it was ok. Today they applied the Micro Finish and the sides of the pool are
really wavy and bumpy. Tomorrow they come to acid wash. Is it normal to have a bumpy wall and will the acid wash smooth it out?
They said they put three coats on and the wavy, bumpy look is normal.

Thanks in advance for your help
 
Today they applied the Micro Finish and the sides of the pool are
really wavy and bumpy. Tomorrow they come to acid wash. Is it normal to have a bumpy wall and will the acid wash smooth it out? They said they put three coats on and the wavy, bumpy look is normal.

Of course they would say that! Acid washing won't get rid of the waviness. If the bumps are the size of the chipout divots, it won't get rid of those either.
 
They needed to smooth the divots before they plastered with cement.

Or they needed to put a heavier coating of plaster over the divots to smooth it during the plaster.

Either way something needs to be redone to give you a smooth surface.
 
My chip out looked like what you're describing. I don't recall seeing them do anything after that. They just smoothed it all out with my pebble finish. As other's pointed out, an acid wash won't fix that, not even close. An acid wash removes material in the 1/16"-1/8" range, if that.

Now just about any pool finish is going to look wavy and bumpy, to some extent, and that is normal. Even the most carefully applied finish has those types of imperfections because the finish work is done by hand troweling. But you shouldn't really see that during the day. At night, the angle of the pool light makes the bumps look gigantic, and most people (including me) freak out the first time they see their brand new finish at night. But if you're seeing that during the day, that's a red flag.

Now I don't know what a Micro Fusion finish is, or why it is applied with multiple coats. If it's more like a spray-on coating, then Allen's right, the chipped out surface (gunite?) would need to be prepped smooth somehow, otherwise any imperfections would show through, the number of coats wouldn't matter. Does it come from a manufacturer that warrants the product or its installation? PebbleTec finishes come with a manufacturer warranty, and their installers must be certified to install it. Anything like that for Micro Fusion? The reason I ask is, if you are not satisfied, and your contractor won't do anything about that, then you might be able to get a rep from Micro Fusion to come to your pool and assess the installation. He may side with your contractor, or he may side with you, but at least it's another opinion you can gather to see if your expectations are realistic or not.

If you can capture what you're talking about with some pics, and post them here, our experts might be able to help you with that.

You're going to have to move fast, they're going to want to put water in the pool immediately after they finish acid washing. Of course, maybe it will look better once filled. Mine did.
 
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By the way, welcome to TFP! Glad you found us. Sorry it's under these circumstances, but we'll all help you if we can...
 
@jimmythegreek, do you know about this stuff? Is it like a typical pebble finish, in that you can spray and then trowel it on and build it up to smooth out virtually any lump, bump, cut or gouge in the underlying gunite? Or is it more like paint/epoxy that goes on too thin to hide any imperfections below?

And what about this idea of just applying a bond coat to a finish layer and building up from there? Any chance of delaminating down the road?
 

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It's like Pebble Tech.....I think. We have someone form the company coming out to inspect.
That's what their website makes it sound like. Just a finer aggregate, but basically the same plaster-based substrate. Below is my chip out. I didn't think to take a picture of the final coat. But I recall they only applied one coat, thick enough to hide all the gouges, and then an army of workers hand troweled that smooth. I don't see how three coats would work, as you can't walk on freshly-applied plaster. My guys worked from one end to the other, troweling as they went. They didn't, couldn't have, done a second or third pass. It ended up with one guy, sort of painting himself into a corner, so to speak, in the deep end. And then the rest of the guys hauled him out with a rope, so he wouldn't mess up the rest of the finish.

Your pic looks a bit like it would at night, with a pool light shining low across the surface. I don't recall mine looking like that in broad daylight.

Hopefully the rep will agree with you. And I know some types of concrete products can be layered and will adhere properly to each other if they are applied soon enough together, while the first layer is still curing. That's what I've reached out to Jimmy to confirm.

Good luck.

chipped out.jpg
 
No experience with it but from my understanding it's a micro pebble finish similar to plaster. I dont know the application system but I agree on how they would ever put 3 coats on. It's probably pricey and they skimped on thickness needed to achieve a smooth finish. Do you have any pics from raw pool before the finish? Did they bond cost it or what was the prep?
 
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