Non skid top coats

Discussion in 'Materials' started by SeaPickle22, Nov 30, 2014.

  1. SeaPickle22
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    SeaPickle22 New Member

    I recently bought a 17ft 1972 mako center console I am tearing the floor up so I can instal a new gas tank, and also re wire the whole boat. I'm looking for a non skid type paint. All suggestions welcome. My budget for the paint is about $150- $200. - thanks
     
  2. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Welcome to the forum.

    The usual method isn't paint. Typically you'll have to re'glass the sole (what you've called the floor) and it's in this process that you add the texture. Sealing the sole down with 'glass is a multi step process. Simply, once you've got the fabric down, you tape off the areas you want texture, then apply more goo (part of the 'glassing process) in the untaped areas. When this resin has gotten near the "green" stage, you'll take a roller over it, which puts texture in the resin. Since the goo is about to "gel" up, it can't lay back down and smooth out, leaving a textured surface. With this done, you pull the tape and let everything cure. At this point you have texture in the areas you want it, so another coat of resin is applied, which softens the sharp points a bit and seals the transition lines, between the textured and untextured areas that were taped off. Lastly is paint, unless you've used a pigment in the resin. This is the easy way, though some like the texture to be in the paint. With the texture in the resin, you can aggressively scrub, including removing paint and the texture stays, but if the texture is int he paint, an aggressive scrub will remove some texture.

    Texture in paint is hard to get uniform, especially if you mix particulates into the paint. Sprinkling works better in this regard, but still has the same drawbacks. There's a few different ways to skin this kitty, so do some research and pick your poison. If you elect to put particulates in the paint, consider inert materials, such as polyurethane pellets. Sand is a common choice by folks that have never had to make repairs or do touch up, on a sand textured surface, so use something else (trust me). I know a guy that used ground up glass, for a deck texture and it was nice under a few coats of paint, but then he had to pull an engine, so the deck needed to be cut open and patched once the engine was back aboard. Yep, you can imagine how difficult it was to sand off the glass bits and to match this texture come time to fix it. His solution was to grind the whole deck and used truck bed liner on everything.
     
  3. philSweet
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    philSweet Senior Member

    Reminds me of a funny story. While at the Everglades, I was asked to repair and redeck the bow of an old rental Gibson houseboat that had been damaged when it broke free during a storm. The "nonskid" on the original deck appeared to me to be drops of resin spattered about. I though it was going to be trouble to match. After the repair, I glassed the deck and started playing around with resin droplets. When something didn't work, I just rolled it out and tried something different. Eventually, I got something close and redid about 10 feet of the boat's bow with dribbles and went home for the weekend.

    When I came back in two days, the deck had been ground flat, burning right through the glass in places and leaving huge swirly gouges in the deck. The marina manager had apparently decided I was just a really messy laminator and decided to "fix" it himself. In two days of grinding, he never noticed that the rest of the boat was done the same way!
     
  4. Petros
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    Petros Senior Member

    One of the best textures I have seen is the painted canvas look. but now they use a synthetic fabric that looks like canvas, glue down to the surface, and than paint it over. It will protect the underlying glass from sunlight, and give a pleasing "natural" looking deck surface.
     
  5. keysdisease
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    keysdisease Senior Member

    A friend did a really cool non skid treatment. He used a no knot hex patterned fishing net that he epoxied to the deck, added coats of epoxy primer until he got the profile he liked, then painted. Was the most "factory" looking non-skid I ever saw, really nice and worked very well as non skid as well as looking great.

    Something like this:
     

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  6. SeaPickle22
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    SeaPickle22 New Member

    Any one ever use awl grip? I heard if you use a salt shaker and sprinkle it evenly in between coats it works really well.
     
  7. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Rock salt is the usual choice, but it washes out, so is more commonly employed over clear finishes to offer them some texture. Granulated sugar is also effective in this regard.

    There are lots of ways to make texture, but there's also things to consider too, like will it rot, collect moisture, putrefy, need to be reapplied with each paint job, can it be matched is repairs are made, etc.

    When the texture is in the coating and it's easy to make, these issues are attended. If the texture is in the paint, you'll be doing it over and over, every few paint jobs or in high traffic pattern areas.
     
  8. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    The proper way to do non skid with awlgrip is to mix the glass beads into the paint and spray it on with a large tip, there is also a real technique involved that is not much like spray painting. I helped my son re do the nonskid on his 24ft sailboat a couple of years ago, we set up a section of rolling scaffolding, he mixed the awlgrip, mixed in the glass beads (awlgrip product), put a 1/2" nut in the paint pot, got up on the scaffold and basically mist coated the deck from as high above it as he could hold the gun while i moved the scaffold a a fairly brisk pace, let it tack and repeated one or two more times, the nut in the paint pot is because you need to keep shaking it to keep the beads from just settling in the bottom, he used a remote pot of maybe 2 quarts which he carried in his left hand with the gun in the right. The key is keeping the gun way above the surface and letting the paint just float down on the surface and keeping it moving. He works at a marina but is not the painter, but this is the technique the painter uses and i must say it turned out perfect, i have never seen better. I have done dozens of nonskid jobs over the years with many different methods and products but i have never had one or seen anyone else have a job turn out as well. Last winter the painter at the marina did a deck with kiwi grip with a roller and like every other roller job ive done or seen, you can see where the roller overlaps previous passes, now overall you don't really notice in the big picture but its there. Ive done the cabosil in the awlgrip, Durabak, cork granules, Epsom salts sprinkled in the paint and then washed off, and yes, sand. they all work but we will be redoing the Epsom salts in the awlgrip on my P cat with the sprayed glass beads in awlgrip at some point.
    I agree with Par, never sand again.

    Steve.
     
  9. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Your efforts sound like mine Steve. I have AwlGrip and Sterling texture here and both aren't 'glass but polyurethane pellets. I think they just use recycled poly and grind them up and somehow make them into mini balls, possible remold them, though I think simply a grinding and rolling operation. I've seen two types, one is the ball shape and the other is an irregular, sort of spherical thing. Applying them with the appropriate gun does a good job, but still leaves you with the problem of high wear areas, repairs and matching. This is why I prefer the texture in the laminate top coats. They don't become dislodged with high traffic, though they can wear, but at a much slower rate. You can clean the surface without removing any of it, chemical strippers can be used, etc., etc., etc.
     
  10. gdavis
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    gdavis Junior Member

    Hello Seapickle, I like that that name. So non skid on the cheap eh? All you need to do is put down the first coat of paint then sprinkle on some sand blasting medium and then cover with two more coats of paint. You can make a shaker with a coffee can with small holes in the bottom like a big salt shaker. You will be surprised at how uniform you can get it. Do a few practice runs first. The paint? Try easypoxy this stuff is pretty rugged and will fit the budget. I've been there, boats aren't cheap. The blasting sand comes in different grits but medium size should do and is very uniform in size. Again, just do some samples first. You can do it! Then go fishing know what I mean?...g
     
  11. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    There are so many cheap ways to do non skid, as par says, stay away from sand and other abrasive materials. As a cheap method just adding cabosil to the paint is as good as any and then applying with a texture roller. You can get as aggressive a grip as you want or not so much depending on how much you roll it out. Ive done a lot of boats using this method but always with 2 part paints so I don't know how it works with one part paints. With 2 part paints you mix the paint first, then add enough cabosil for the paint to peak, use a power mixer in a drill, make sure you mix enough to do the whole job as its difficult to mix a second batch the same. Do a practice run on a sheet of something to get a feel for how much to roll to get the texture you like.

    Steve.
     
  12. PAR
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    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Works fine with single part paints Steve and "sandable primers" are little more than regular primer with silica (some have spheres and/or balloons too) in it.

    Those suggesting hard, mineral or other particulates in the paint, simply haven't the experience (no offense intended) with repairs and recoating these surfaces. The first time you have to make a repair on a sand or coke or stone particulate in a textured paint, you'll understand why. You want softer materials, which works with the elongation of the paint film too. This is why I recommend polyurethane grit. Rubber is good, if the paint will stick to it, walnut shells, etc.

    I know one manufacture that uses ground up boat hull parts as their grit, though it's applied in the resin, not the top coats. One cool thing they do is sprinkle these tiny hunks of laminate through a stamped steel mesh, which applies the grit in a diamond, cross hatch pattern. They just hold the metal mesh over the work (very close to it) and sprinkle the grit. Very unique pattern, easy to match if necessary (if you happen to have the same expanded metal mesh), much more durable than texture in paint, etc.
     
  13. Gilray4
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    Gilray4 New Member

    Cross post from another thread:

    http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...order-paint-application-52201.html#post720288

    A trick used in the surf board industry:
    Rock salt or grainular sugar.
    I have never tried it on a boat, however...
    Most people here on this thread have talked about using a roller to 'stiple' gelling resin.
    You could also sprinkle on grainular salt in the resin. Once the resin has fully cured (after 'stipling' with a roller) you simply give the area a light, warm water scrub and all the salt goes away. Then finnish paint/coat. It makes for a really nice non skid. I know a sugar works fairly well, however... the substance (as opposed to salt) tends to attract ants etc. So salt is a preffered choice. Thoughts, flame me... or perhaps somebody has tried it on a boat deck already ?
     
  14. Steve W
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    Steve W Senior Member

    Read the bottom of post #8, Epsom salts is a fairly common way of doing non skid. I find it hard to keep clean on my P cat. It was applied in Awlcraft.

    Steve.
     

  15. AndySGray
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    AndySGray Senior Member

    I can vouch for this one, we have a tourist dive boat with an aluminium swim/entry platform.

    It was cleaned with alumibrite, wiped with acetone, then primed using the 2 part awlgrip primer (roller).

    The first topcoat went on including brushing (slow) thinner/reducer (foam roller)and while still wet the awlgrip griptex powder was sprinkled from about 3 feet.

    Second topcoat went on in the pm and after a couple of days to dry thoroughly boat went into use.

    Grippy with both bare feet and rubber soles, and if you fall it doesn't grate off skin.

    Been really durable over the last 5 years and shows no sign of needing to be re-done, despite pretty heavy use. Can't comment on using it over glass though.

    Of course the Awlgrip system is not going to be coming in at 150-200 bucks for a full sole on a Mako - that will be more like your change from a grand! :eek:

    ;)
     
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