So now I’m three months in:
How’s it perform?In a nutshell: “as advertised”
My Jeep peed oil on it (as expected). It cleans up super easy (as hoped).
Mud and dirt, it seems to shrug off. Once the dirt is dry, a push broom takes everything off. Super easy.
It has plenty of tooth when wet even without anti-skid, albeit that’s probably a function of my aggressive floor prep job. You can still slide in smooth soled shoes when wet (tried to get a pic of my skid mark), but the only shoes I’ve had this happen in have dead smooth rubber soles and I’ve also slid on a wet parking lot stripe (painted lane marker) while wearing them. The tooth is easily as good as the epoxy floor I did before with the anti-skid included.
I did throw down some cardboard for the oil drip but that managed to soak through and sit for a month anyways. I used a little soapy water this time and it still cleans up easy.
About the only downside I’ve found so far is that the part of Hellfire out in the weather (exposed threshold) has shifted shade. Note, it may be the pigment as the lighted area looks more like un-tinted Hellfire now. It doesn’t bug me but figured folks might want to know.
This was about 4 weeks in.
This is now.
I talked with Scotty at Legacy about this and apparently there are trade-offs between durability and UV protection in the chemistry. Personally, I’m glad to make that compromise. I'm happy to verify that version 2 of Hellfire is only a shift in shade, where-as version 1 shifted hue and took on a greenish look that apparently wasn’t very pleasant. If you prefer to be careful, you could probably treat your threshold with some UV protectant spray. I like this stuff:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AB16LH8/But what do I really care about? I'm so impressed that Hellfire is this TOUGH. Dragging an aluminum wheeled mechanics jack around doesn’t seem to do much of anything and that’s a notable difference vs. my old epoxy/acid stain floor. On the other hand, the places I’ve scratched it, I’ve completely deserved it. I.E. yes, dragging a 1000 lb welding table across the floor is enough to give you a scratch.
I don’t really have any shots to show of the areas I’ve covered in metal grinding dust because there’s really no before or after to show. You just don’t see any change, it’s rad, so the zero hot tire pickup and temperature capacity claims check out as far as I can tell.
So there you have it.
Hellfire… It goes on easy, it’s super tough, it looks good, but not so good that you won’t use your space. I love the fact that I almost don’t think about my floor now, it’s just a pleasant place to be. If you have a shop or use your garage as a work space, I strongly recommend you scope it out.
THAT SAID, if you want a showroom, this might not be the product for you. If I were looking for a museum-like display space, I would have polished the concrete and then done a two-tone stain effort with a high end clear. I looked at NOHR-S from Legacy for that purpose but, at the end of the day, pragmatism won out for me. As noted, this isn’t my first rodeo and I wanted to lean toward max function on this effort.
No regrets thus far, and it doesn’t hurt at all that it was pretty economical compared to some approaches I checked out.
If you do go with Legacy, please tell Scotty hello for me. I can’t overstate how helpful he is. As I noted in a former review, any vendor who tells me what I DON’T need to buy will instantly earn my trust.
I’ll probably chime in with some future experiences (IE the first time I drop molten weld slag on this, what I find when I finally open the tinted cans), but for now, my garage thread is probably be the best place to catch me.
https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=285957By the way, how tough is Hellfire?
One more example: Remember that thing I mentioned about not wearing gloves and assuming I’d get away with it? This is what my hands looked like 3 days (and a great deal of scrubbing with various chemicals) after the painting effort. The blister that’s starting to heal was from the long day pushing that floor grinder.
A full two weeks later (having pretty much been constantly picking at the stuff) and I was just rocking some pretty neato nail polish.
Whatever… I’m secure enough in my manhood to rock it like a rockstar.
Once it was partly grown out (3.5 weeks in?), I finally took one of my wife’s emery boards and was able to shave off what was left. Good times, and good times in an awesome garage ahead.
Thanks to Garage Journal for all the feedback and reviews (I read plenty before deciding this route) and to Legacy Industrial for being a quality firm that shoots straight.
Good success on all your projects, this one was a big thumbs up from me.
-Joel Payne
