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The single-component Geotech lineup — AP Soil 600, AP Fill 700, and AP Fill 720 — taught the way Colt teaches it at bootcamp: cups, sand, pipettes, and catalyst, with the cautionary tales that come from pumping these products for a living.
After this module, you'll be able to pick the right single-component resin for the job, pair it with the correct catalyst at the correct dose, adjust for cold weather, and recognize the failure signatures — collapsed foam, thickened product, runaway pressure — before they cost you a job.
This session is the hands-on companion to Intro to Polyurethane: every student has sand, cups, pipettes, and catalyst on the desk, and each product gets mixed and watched in real time. The lineup:
All three are NSF/ANSI 61 certified for drinking-water contact and phthalate free — facts worth knowing when a project sits near a well, a waterway, or a municipal system.
The first bench test of bootcamp: AP Soil 600 poured into a cup of sand, no catalyst. Two things happen, and both teach a field lesson:
"Imagine if we were pumping with no catalyst — you'd have to wait 4 hours between each gallon."— Colt, Alchatek Technical Training
That's the entire argument for catalyst in one sentence. Per the TDS, the dose sets your schedule: 1% → ~2 hr · 2% → ~55 min · 3% → ~25 min.
The second bench test adds the variable that matters: catalyst, dosed by pipette. The procedure Colt drills:
Watching the cup "set off" at your desk is the point of the exercise — you learn the visual signature of a healthy reaction, so a wrong one (Lesson 5) jumps out at you in the field.
720 is the expansion machine of the single-component family, and it runs on its own catalyst pair: Gen Cat (standard, 5–10%) and Gen Cat Fast. In the bench demo, 720 with Gen Cat Fast is set up and rising within ~30 seconds.
"Typically the only time you use those is whenever you need a lot of expansion really quick."— Colt, Alchatek Technical Training
The use case is gushing water — an active leak or flowing void you need shut down immediately. The trade-off is honest: fast catalyst gives you enormous foam fast, but the reaction outruns deep soil permeation. For permeation work on a normal schedule, the standard catalyst at a standard dose is the better tool.
Catalysts are product-specific. The bench demo proves it: 700 dosed with the wrong catalyst rises — then collapses into a sticky puddle instead of curing as foam. Here's the map:
| Product | Correct Catalyst | Minimum Dose | Wrong Catalyst Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| AP Soil 600 | Catalyst per TDS (optional — accelerates cure) | 1–3% by volume | Foam rises then collapses — product wasted, holes re-drilled, job redone |
| AP Fill 700 | Cat 106 (standard) · Cat 107 (fast) | 106: 2% · 107: 5% | |
| AP Fill 720 / SWRP 1 | Gen Cat (standard) · Gen Cat Fast | 5–10% |
Doses and pairings per the current TDS revisions. Every product page on alchatek.com lists its matching catalyst.
And the story that makes it stick: on a job in Michigan, Colt and Jacob's crew had pails labeled as the SWRP accelerator. Mixed, catalyzed, started pumping — and the first two or three injection points collapsed exactly like the bench demo. The pails actually contained Cat 106. The diagnosis only happened because someone recognized the failure signature and stopped.
"When you're out in the field, if something's not going right — do some research, figure out what's going on."— Colt, Alchatek Technical Training
Every TDS number is measured at 77°F. The field correction Colt teaches:
"Every time you drop 10 degrees, you double the reaction time."— Colt, Alchatek Technical Training
AP Microfine 10 is not a foam. It's a microfine cementitious slurry, pumped with piston-style equipment (the same class of pump used for mudjacking), designed for engineer-specified permeation grouting — in theory, soaking into a sand column and curing it into a grout column.
The field reality, from Colt's own time pumping it: even a microfine slurry is thick compared to a 38 cP resin, and at typical pump pressures (300–400 PSI on a 1-inch line) it tends to displace soil — or fracture it and blow out of the ground — rather than permeate it. For most stabilization work, AP Soil 600 outperforms it.
So why carry it? Because specifications sometimes call for microfine grout by name, and few suppliers stock it. When an engineer's spec is firm on microfine, Alchatek can supply it — which keeps you, the contractor, eligible to bid that job instead of walking away from it.
Story one: the paver driveway. Pumping microfine beside a garage on a high-end residential job, the crew looked up to find the center of the paver driveway heaved several inches before they could shut down. Slurry under pressure doesn't announce itself — by the time you see movement at the surface, the ground has already moved.
Story two: the church. A sinkhole remediation where an unqualified contractor rented compaction grouting equipment and ran it without understanding it. The result: floors heaved in six places, walls cracked floor to ceiling, a series of roof trusses broken, pews jacked off the floor — repair costs exceeding the entire original sinkhole job.
The technical frame for that job: compaction grouting (cementitious, from bedrock up to about 15 ft, big concrete pumps) handles the deep zone; chemical grouting (polyurethane, ~15 ft to surface) finishes to grade. Two methods, two depth bands — and both demand pressure discipline.
"300 PSI caused all that damage — that's why engineers are always pushy about how much pressure we're putting on the ground."— Colt, Alchatek Technical Training
Score at least 4 of 5 to unlock module completion.