Sky Landing Balcony

Project Team
Shellie Rigsby of Acanthus Concrete Stain Designs
Dave Barreto and Harry Crum of Kemiko Decorative and Industrial Coatings
Tamryn Doolan of Surface Gel Tek
With support from Jim Rowe of Miracote, Michael Rideout of Pro Surfacing, and Cohill's Building Specialties in Phoenix.

Sponsors

Project Description
The U-shaped balcony outside the elevators on the second floor of the Children's Museum called for something unconventional. It provides an overlook for a new fanciful three-story Climber that looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. Children making it to the highest point of the Climber look down on the balcony from a flying bathtub. From the vantage point of the bathtub, Nancy Stice, the museum's exhibits director, imagined a sky panorama unfolding below her across the balcony. From this starting point, Shellie Rigsby created a skyscape complete with a swirling rainbow set among fluffy clouds and, at the opposite end, a kite-like abstract design. Shellie sent in numerous illustrations to get the concept just right. The project team would be racing the clock to complete each step, as access to the area could be closed to visitors for only limited amounts of time.

Kemiko Decorative and Industrial Coatings sponsored the Sky Landing balcony. Dave Barreto saw it as a great opportunity to do a creative project with Shellie and incorporate both Kemiko stains and Kemiko's Generation II RapidShield instant-cure clear top coating for heavy-duty use in matte finish. This solution would reduce curing time and make sure the new floor mural would stand up to high foot traffic as well as strollers and even tricycles in the nearby play area.

To expedite installation, Tamryn Doolan came in ahead of time to use her Tek Gel for Profiling to remove the built-up residue of wax and old treatments on the aging floor. In addition to being an environmentally sound product, Tek Gel provided an efficient way to prepare the surface for application of a topping with the least noise, intrusion and time on the job.

The area revealed was severely gouged, pitted and uneven, so the project team reached turned for support to another group working on-site. Miracote offered their MPC microtopping to provide a level surface and create a clean, smooth and durable surface for staining. Shellie Rigsby and Dave Barreto applied the microtopping. Next, they used aqua blue Stone Tone Stain to create the bright sky. Fluffy clouds were layered on top using more of the microtopping. Both the curving rainbow and the kite-like shape were created with Rembrandt Polymer stains. Since the stains can be translucent, the team mixed the stains into the MPC when they wanted to apply high-opacity colors.

After the artistic side of the project was complete, industrial experience was put to use. Harry Crum of Kemiko arrived on-site to operate RapidShield equipment that transmits UV light to cure a specially designed 100 percent solids epoxy topcoat instantaneously so that the floor could be walked on without further delays.

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