Laticrete SpectraLOCK Pro Premium Mini Parts A&B, 2lb (0.9 kg)

Going into this job, my huge concern was being able to get the excess grout cleaned up before it dried and made a hazy mess all over my tile. Boy did I put my concern into the wrong area! Take a first timers word for it...the REAL concern is getting this stuff pushed into the grout joints without your arm falling off! I decided to go with the mini kits so I could do one wall at a time and not risk having a big batch wasted if I couldnt finish fast enough, and im sure glad I made that decision. By the time I got to the bottom of the first wall, I barely had the arm strength to finish. This stuff will wear you out. It doesnt flow very well and even though I used a polyurethane grout float, it still required tons of arm strength to get it pushed into the joints. I would say this was EASILY the hardest part of the whole install. Cleanup was a breeze. I spent about an hour from when I mixed it to when I finished applying it to the wall. Then I walked away for 15-20 mins before the first wash. I used the sponge and followed the directions. That took probably 85% of the excess off. Then I let it sit another 45 minutes or so before the final wash. I used a white scotch pad dipped in the rinse water to do a quick scrub, and immediately wiped the area down with a dry microfiber rag. This got rid of any remaining haze to about 99%. After that I took a fresh microfiber along with the slightly damp used one I had from the previous step, and did a "wax on, wax off" motion going tile by tile. A few circular swipes with the damp one followed immediately by drying the tile with the fresh one was the final touch in restoring the full gloss of the tile and eliminating any slight haze left. Dry time was a non issue for me personally. From the time I mixed the batch to the time I finished the wall completely with the final rinse was a good 3-3 1/2 hours and the grout haze was still coming off without much fight. Coloring was a perfect match between all 3 batches as well. I cant speak for longevity, but i will say this stuff dries HARD as a rock. During cleanup a few days after, i had a dried chunk on the floor about 1/8" thick, and i could not physically break it in half. Very impressive. Overall im pumped with how the final result looks, and would definitely recommend this stuff.

I purchased this grout for a shower floor I am building because I wanted the best possible mold and stain resistance for the “hard service” showers are subject to. I was quite apprehensive before mixing up the grout. Why? Because it’s an epoxy product ... and I would only get one chance to get it right. You can’t temper or tweak the mix with water to adjust the consistency. And I would be on the clock ... no dilly-dally time. I assembled parts A & B and C (the colored ultra fine sand mix). Followed the instructions to the letter ... Mixed A & B thoroughly, added Part C and mixed thoroughly ... and the grout finished to a PERFECT consistency!! and worked into joints that varied from extremely tight to about 1/4” ... although most joints were 1/8”. A smooth ‘epoxy’ grout float is essential, and with a little elbow grease the grout worked easily and perfectly into the joints. Before mixing it appeared as there was no way the milk carton of ultra fine sand would mix properly ... it appeared to be too much dry mix ratio for the epoxy. Nope. The components mixed PERFECTLY to a very workable consistency. I shouldn’t have had ANY apprehension ... this Laticrete epoxy grout kit is bloody PERFECT! And clean-up went perfectly as well. Again, I followed the instructions and cleaned the tile twice, at designated times. The FIRST clean is the serious clean, when I ensured grout buildup was removed from a few tiles that were tipped a bit. My tile was a tumbled travertine, so the grout filled some of the voids and recesses in the tile ... again, perfectly. The sanded grout wasn’t too coarse to fill the voids. I will DEFINATELY use this epoxy mix again ... it was absolutely perfect!! Don’t be apprehensive like me ... follow the instructions and you will get a perfect result. I did. This “mini” kit just barely (but perfectly) grouted my 38” x 42” shower pan with a small, random ‘French’ pattern (photo attached).

I learned so much from the reviews here I want to pay it forward for all you out there who are thinking about using this Spectralock Premium Pro grout. This stuff is GREAT. What everyone else has said is true, you will be FINE as long as you follow the directions and tips. Have everything ready before you start mixing; and I mean everything – get your sponges, wash water, floats, scale, buckets, rags, microfiber clothes, ice, mixing sticks, scale – EVERYthing together before you start mixing. Mix small batches. For the floor you can do 1:1:6.6; for the walls I did 1:1:6. This works out to 50 grams of Part A, 50 grams of Part B and 330 grams of sand (Part C) for the floors, 300 grams of sand for the walls. It is better to mix too little than too much at a time. It’s not hard to mix and measure, and you won’t get ‘seams’ where different batches meet but it’s expensive and it doesn’t stay workable all that long. I used a plastic kitchen spatula to mix my grout for the floors, a regular epoxy grout float for the floors, a QEP margin float for the walls, and I bought a digital kitchen scale for measuring. I’m including links to these at the end of this review, but I found most of them locally. I mixed the grout in plastic quart sized yogurt containers – but I only mixed the 50:50:300/330 mixture except for when I did the shower floor. My shower floor is 1x1 inch tiles and only 58x32 inches so I mixed a whole Mini set to do that part and used the plastic bucket that the Mini set came in to mix it. Since the colder the grout, the longer it lasts, I put the whole kit in the refrigerator over night before mixing. I also kept the room as cool as I could (I lucked out with the weather so most of the time the room was about 67 degrees) and I also put ice in a bucket and kept the grout in the bucket after I mixed it. The Laticrete website says to dump all the grout out at once, but I didn’t do that – on the floors I spread it out in small batches that I scooped up with the mixing spatula, worked that in and then scooped up another bit. On the walls I scooped it up with the spatula and put it right on the end of the margin float. I got the margin float after trying to use the full-sized float on the walls. My shower wall tiles are 12x24 with 1/16” grout lines and the regular sized trowel was annoyingly large. If your tiles are smaller you probably can just use the regular float. I had grouted once before using regular cement-based grout. If you have grouting experience, the actual grouting is not that different; you have to push a little harder, but otherwise it’s a very similar process. Push it into the grout lines at a diagonal, from both directions and then scrape off the extra with the float at almost 90 degrees. The clean up is the part that you really have to pay attention to. Do your first wash 20-30 minutes after starting your grouting. Get your grout lines the way you like them with this wash. Rinse with plain clean water after you've washed with the solution. If you aren’t going to use the initial wash water again you can use it to wash your grout float and spatula now. If you are going to use the initial wash water again you can clean up your tools with water that has ½-1 cup of vinegar in it. Do a final wash of your tools with soapy water and rinse. Put any extra grout in a zip lock bag, push all the air out and stick it in the freezer for filling in bits and pieces you might have missed or to use later. Your final wash needs to be done 30-60 minutes after your first one. Use a white plastic scrubber (I picked one up in the tile aisle) and the final rinse solution and scrub the tiles in a circular motion. Then use a sponge and the final rinse solution to wipe up the stuff from the tile. Then wipe with plain water. I did the final scrub/wipe/rinse twice. Then on the wall of the shower I used terry cloth rags to wipe the surface dry and then microfiber clothes to polish them (my tile is highly polished porcelain). I did not wear gloves during this final dry/polish phase so I could feel the tile to see if any haze was left on them. Those microfiber clothes are AMAZING. And just as an aside, the Laticrete calculator for determining how much grout you need is very accurate. The shower floor used a LOT of grout since there are so many lines with 1x1 tiles and I kind of freaked out when I saw how much it used and ordered more grout, but I didn’t need it. I hope this helps! Good luck to all – you can do it!!! www.amazon.com/Kitchen-Spatula-Favorite-Utensil-Accessory/dp/B01B3SQF1U/ref=sr_1_28?keywords=Plastic+Spatula&qid=1583679392&s=home-garden&sr=1-28 www.amazon.com/MARSHALLTOWN-TROWEL-G02371-Epoxy-Handle/dp/B016TQM7G8/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=marshalltown+epoxy+grout+float&qid=1583679583&s=home-garden&sr=8-3 www.amazon.com/QEP-42115Q-42115q-Margin-Float/dp/B00PP3VPXS www.amazon.com/Ozeri-Professional-Digital-Kitchen-Tempered/dp/B003MSZBSI/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?keywords=kitchen+scale&qid=1583679776&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyUkZYUlo1NjZaOFJHJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODQ5NzIwM1AxWFBWVTAxMEZTUCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwNjM2NjY0N0JJSDhDVktFUjVXJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3BfYXRmJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

I'm writing this as a DIYer whose first experience with applying grout was this product on a marble basketweave mosaic floor...which was also the first tile installation I've ever done - nothing like a challenge eh? I cannot speak to its longevity but I can comment on a few things. I took some extra tiles and created a small test bed on a sheet of plywood to test out color combinations before installing - we tested almond and mushroom. The tiles have variable spacing in the pattern...anywhere from 1/16 to about 1/4 - per the instructions I held back 10% of the part C color. The tests were done with all test tiles having been sealed with Stonetech Bulletproof (as a precaution) and half of them treated with Stonetech grout release. I did the initial wash at 20 minutes and then the final wash at 60 minutes. Grout was applied with the MD Building Products 49829 float. The most challenging part were the two washes; essentially after a pass with a sponge on each side it is time to rinse and then redampen the sponge with the wash solutions. HAVE LOTS OF SPONGES AND SCRUBBER PADS! YOU CANNOT HAVE TOO MANY SPONGES OR PADS!!!! After a while the sponges gunk up and you have to switch to a new sponge. Having a second person who's dedicated duty is to rinse and prepare sponges would help a lot as well. After the final wash there was essentially no haze left on any of the tile (marble and travertine) on either test area (with or without grout release). There were also no scratches present in the finish on the tiles so the silica in Part C seemed to be immaterial. As others have said...this is expensive; especially for a mosaic floor where a lot of grout is needed. I'm not completely sure what people mean by difficult to work with since I've never done this before or used a non-epoxy grout. I took my time, worked carefully, followed ALL the instructions and feel it turned out quite well - even for a first time DIYer.

-I used this grout to repair the leaking skimmers in my 12 year old pool, I was losing a half inch of water a day. I grouted all around the entrances to the skimmers where they meet the wall of the pool (they are still solidly in place, not loose). this quality product adhered well to the face of the tiles, the existing grout, and the faces of the plastic skimmers (my worry), I prepped all surfaces by scraping and scotch-briting, sprayed with 91% alcohol, and let dry. I used a small postal scale to get the two liquid & one powder (color) quantities correct 1:1:5 ratio (part a, b, and c). I had a bit of trouble with the product sagging, but I had a couple of large joints (1/2 inch plus) so I expected some sag,... eventually it firmed up and stayed put. work time was about fifteen minutes, mixed a batch (1oz, 1oz, 5oz by weight) for each skimmer and ended up only using half of the "mini parts" ingredients. the only complaint I have other than the sagging, is the TEN DAY dry time for submerged applications, I didn't expect that, and it means the pool is down for a while. considering how much money I saved doing this myself it's worth it. I hear it's $4000-8000 per skimmer to replace them... worth a try, and seems better than the temporary fix of underwater putty. - i'll try to return to this review in a while to evaluate it's success/failure, as I know there are many folks with this common pool workmanship issue. (installed 6/24/17) (7/10/17) -so far so good, waited the ten days for curing, repaired my leak, and seems to be hard as rock, pool water did not soften it yet, and it's holding solidly (9/23/19) -this stuff is like rock, pool water seems to have no ill-effect on it, underwater or splashing/water line