As Joe McCarty, co-owner along with his wife Sarai, of JoeTile (www.joetile.com) will tell you, professional troweling skills are paramount to success as we get ready to install our mosaics in the Luther Burbank Park Playground. Joe and Sarai McCarty have been sharing their professional expertise with our project since its inception when I was figuring out the details for the proposal for the playground mosaic enhancements.
Yesterday, May 22nd, Joe McCarty led a training session with Josè Orantes and I and a few of our amazing core volunteers. Joe and Sarai arrived with all the materials and surfaces to teach us the tricks of the trade.
Troweling expertise, which Joe McCarty shared with our eager-to-learn group, is the key to the highest quality installation. Joe taught us how to mix the thinset in a bucket for 5 minutes, letting it rest for 5 minutes then remixing, how to professionally apply a skim coat and techniques for using a notch trowel effectively to create the perfect ridges needed to permanently adhere the mosaics to the concrete surfaces. I’ll be practicing and honing my troweling techniques in my driveway!
We are beyond grateful to Joe and Sarai for embracing our project. Joe McCarty comes with a lifetime of professional experience and generously shared his knowledge with us to shorten our learning curve and hone our skills — priceless!
You might remember that in the September 2015, we closed the playground area so that JoeTile could safely grind and smooth the surfaces within the textured concrete to ready them for our mosaic installations.
playgroundmosaic 
So cool!
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