I'm pathetic to be beyond simple "likes" with products. I like Jahn, I like
Edison, I like Keim and I like ProSoCo. I also like home brewed mixes. As to
the technical merits of the various products I figure, being a contractor, that
there are enough intelligent people who are a lot better than I at making
educated guesses. Ours is not to reason why, but to do or die... with a bit of
proactive resistance. My knowledge is the empirical sort that comes from
mashing the thumb with a hammer. What I care about are such things as how long
has it been in use (track record in the built environment), availability
(weeks, days or months for delivery), useability (will the mechanics use the
stuff or throw it off the scaffold in despair?), and does the manufacturer care
about providing service... either returning phone calls, acting interested in
our account, or providing material in a timely manner. This all translates for
me into our being able to provide service for our customers, which in turn
keeps them happy and keeps me happy and able to sleep at night. Most of the
time I find the whole thing falls apart and a lot of managerial energy is spent
messing with materials, or human situations, that do not perform as well as
initially described.

It took four years of going back n' forth with the customer before they finally
agreed to let us coat their stucco (aka brownstone). This was one of those
projects that you get the day after you throw the file away. By the time the
approval process is completed and we go to order the "standard" coating we find
that the manufacturer has discontinued the color and, slightly desperate and
slightly miffed, we select the next closest. We go ahead with the work... it
looks great, except the color does not match the neighborhood by a long shot
and a friendly neighbor complains. The customer likes the color and remarks
that they thought it might tone out and I kick myself for selecting a quality
material that I "liked" due to colorfastness. We negotiate ourselves out of a
violation with the governmental powers that we want to remain friendly with. We
then spend several months cycling to n' fro with the manufacturer sending us
custom samples that when applied to the building all appear to be white.

As to comparison of products, what I see is that each manufacturer is selecting
a different set of problems to solve and coming up with a different set of
scientific reasons to support their particular solutions. I imagine that from a
design/forensic perspective the idea is to correctly identify the problems,
compare them to a past history of encountered problems, and to find the
solutions that come the closest to working. I am skeptical of their being any
one perfect solution for any problem, and as well that any one material solves
all problems. There are a lot of neat products doing neat things. I like the
variety.

I should mention that we are almost in the process of ordering a bunch of Jahn
patching mortar for a match to some precast concrete, on a new building, that
we have spent the last year trying to convince the architect that Jahn is the
most appropriate solution.What I regret is that some unfortunate precast
manufacturer in the boonies has decided that every time an installer messes up
a bunch of their wares to tell people to call us to patch it. The problem is
that the installers out there messing up on their installations are idiots to
begin with and doing business with them has little to do with the quality of
anyone's products.

Jrhodes wrote:

> Re: ][<en Follett and Keimfarben Mineral Coatings:
>
> Dennis Rude was in our office yesterday pitching the Jahn products he sells
> (Cathedral Stone products).  He says he is introducing mineral coatings he
> likes better than the Keim products.  Would be nice to know how things
> compare.  --Jim Rhodes