There are many brush on sealers.
Buy one that cleans up in water, they are very easy to use.

Just make sure what you get sets "Waterproof" as opposed to "Water Resistant". And most require mutiple coats. Check out the resources below for info & products.

http://www.vseal.com/products/sealers.php

http://www.surebond.com/products/index.html

I would not recommend "Cure 'n Seal." I used it on one of my fountain leaves and even though it was weeks before the leaf was exposed to water, the finish turned white and lifted off. U-g-l-y! So, why do you feel it is necessary to seal it, or make it glossy? I am in So. Fla. and have never had any of my 'crete projects leak or absorb water. Am I missing something? Tango88 is an expert so I would take their advice, but I also do more portland/sand items than hypertufa.

A

Since I work in concrete & cement only, I'm certainly no expert in 'Tufa, but Bucky's response just reminded me of a technique that might be helpful. Maybe someone here has tried & posted it, but here goes just the same. On items such as birdbaths and such that will be constantly holding water, instead of using expensive and often questionable sealers...I often finish just the "bowl" portion of the item with modified cement. As Bucky pointed out, plain old concrete does a pretty good job of holding water, but you can easily take it to the next level by mixing up batch of pure, neat Portland (no sand) and polymer admix to coat that area. It can be plain gray, pure white (white Portland) or colored using integral color. You can even get a marbleized effect using multiple colors. Poly-Modified cement is extremely dense and about as watertight as you can get. It can be visually interesting too since the surface can be as smooth as glass (with a little sanding & polishing) or textured to your taste. It bonds very well to lightly textured concrete and I should think it would likewise bond to 'Tufa, even when applied as thinly as a quarter inch. As an added measure, I still apply a light coat of Carnuba wax and buff it just to finish it off.

As I said, I have no experience at all with 'Tufa, but it seems like as long as you have a good, stable, non-flexing base, it should work for you folks as well as it does for me and my concrete.

Tango88,
Where can I find the poly-modified cement?
Where do you purchase it?
Thanks!

Any place that sells tile will have poly thinset.

The recipe is in the above message. Just mix either gray or white portland with 50/50 water and polymer admix. No sand at all. You can find the admix at Lowe's & The Depot on the concrete aisle. They usually sell a couple of different brands, but I prefer the Sika Brand when I can find it. Quikrete also makes one. Use as little of the wet mix as possible and as soon as you get the initial set, mist it really well, then seal it in a plastic bag as air-tight as possible. I trap some air in it and leave mine out in the sun which heats the bag and keeps the environment inside very high in humidity. Usually for two or three days, then more regular mistings for a day after it's out of the bag. Neat Portland requires exacting curing or it will crack & craze badly, but the process above should get you through.

Tango have you tried silica fume with superplastisizer in your 'neat' recipe.

actually,the cracking and checking has its own interesting look as well!Esp.on faces,gives them an old look!
ALSO...
ordinary glaze finish driveway sealer can do the trick as well,with a bonus that,with the fumes that it kicks off,you can become addicted....just kidding,very much!Fumes(xylene base)are bloody toxic!For the best money,a two part epoxy sealer(water cleanup)gives a great finish-to your piece and to your wallet!
Cheers

Since discovering Xylene my beer bill is way down.:)
It's an old school buzz.

Seriously though Xylene based sealers work much better for me than any other. They really go deep into the crete.
My colors stay pure and unchanged using Ducan, but not so great with the water based product.

I know I recommended the water base product earlier in this thread but for good color sealing IMO a zylene based sealer is better.

tufaenough --- Yes...I do use a superplasticizer in almost every formulation and routinely add silica fume/flour, flyash and a whole host of different "flavorings" depending on the recipe. I was trying to keep the basic "neat" finish formulation and cure process above as simple as possible since some of my combinations can get pretty involved and require a gram scale.

Hmmmmmmmmm..."recipes"...has anyone ever tried Chocolat Chips? They are organic & should make for an interesting texture as well as the sugar providing a retarding effect.

Hi Tango
I have been playing with cement 'neat' for a while but put it on the back burner as a winter project.
I thought it might be fun to try to emulate the finish of glazed pottery using pigment colored crete only.
This requires a very smooth finish and the ability to combine numerous colors at once. I still have a considerable ways to go although I'm happy to say colors I was told weren't doable in concrete are actually possible.
Now if only I could find a deep purple and a true orange.:)

tufaenough --- Stay on it. Neat 'Crete is neat! It will occupy quite a bit of space in the book as it is every bit as tricky as you have by now discovered. The really fine old faux bois works were finished in it & Carlos and I both use neat mixes today. As you noted, it is possible to get a final product that is as dense and smooth as just about any ceramic, which means it is possible to produce extremely fine detail. I have a couple pieces I made several years ago, so just as an experiment, I decided to see if I could still use acid etch colors on them. NOT. Nope. Nada. Nyet. They are so remarkably hard surfaced and dense that the acid just sat there until it evaporated without leaving so much as a hint of color. I even tried some pure, undiluted Muriatic Acid...same results. No effect at all. No wonder some of 80-100 year-old pieces I've seen have held up so well against the elements. It is one of the more difficult, inspiring and elusive properties of their work. One that I've spent more than a few years pinning down, but it can be done. Just stay after it.

Tango, Neat 'Crete is without a doubt a fascinating substance.
I'm forever creating 'crete 'puddles' on my benchtop and adding stuff to them just to see what happens.
Iron filings, copper filings, iron ore, etc.
I wish I had the ability to grind slags and colored stones to powders to see what they do in a neat recipe.

I never knew you could have this much fun for so little money. I wish I had discovered this hobby years ago.:)

Tufaenough, Any way you could get a couple of pieces of polished granite? have you got a stone shop nearby or in a town you visit? They usually have pieces of broken slab around you can get for free. I've used two pieces as a grinder. One piece on top of another, polished sides together,and do it the old fashioned way, lots of elbow grease lol. The polish will take a LONG time to wear away and then you'll start getting stone dust in your final product. Just replace as necessary. You could even make corn meal this way, from dried sweet corn, for your winter breakfasts :)

Tried this a couple of years ago-follow the Chas Sthreshley technique,very similar to concrete neat(use some silica flour as well)that Tango advised about,thendo the reductions using drywaller sanding mesh,going from course to fine.Got bowling ball smoothness,but one HELL of a lot of elbow grease!The concrete neat would def be easier!I did mine w/o any additives other than admix.

Thanks Rick
Polished granite might just do the trick.
I was thinking of making a rock polisher and screening the fines.

Years ago I worked in a copper mine grinding ore samples for the lab. The grinder had steel plates and reduced rocks to dust, we then screened the result through a set of screens keeping samples of each size. The finest was fine fine dust.
I would love to get my hands on one those grinders and sets of screens.:)

Oops sorry, Dave posted about the granite.

I wonder if I could find one of these grinders secondhand. They were not very big and the plates could be 'sharpened' and reused.
I was just a kid and just remember it was a cool job 'bucking' the samples.

Tufaenough --- Like your Ore Samples, Silica Flour is just ground sand. Likewise Marble Dust is the "sawdust" leftover from cutting marble and it too is usually ground to a very small and consistent particle size. Silica "Fume" on the other hand is a byproduct of the manufacture of silicon based metals and acts as a reactive Pozzalan that strengthens and densifies concrete. But it also gets "run through the mill" and sized. So there oughta' be plenty of used equipment out there somewhere. Get it up and running and you just might have a home-based business supplying all of us hobbyists and crafters with hard-to-find stuff!

Just to digress back to colour, have you tried fabric dyes?
While I`m not using difficult techniques(newbie), just cement and sand, I`ve had great sucess overspraying finished item with water diluted fabric colours (no sealants,12mths later,no sign of colour loss) gives me a full range of colour,(purples and oranges!) just not available out here in oxides!