Deck Paint Cruising Corner Forums

This is something we are getting ready to do.. I had hoped to get it done this fall but that didn't happen. cheapest way would be to just paint it and sprinkle sand in the wet paint. Then once dry sweep off all excess sand. Paint once more and your done.. It is cheap and very very durable. The downside is that if you skid on it, you can plan on losing what ever skin came in contact with it. It's like sandpaper on steroids.. This is basically what was factory on these boats.

After looking at all the options our plan is to be adventurus and use one of the products that is a rubberized paint with rubber particles in it for texture. There are mixed reviews with it. A few people have reported issues with its adhesion.. Most say it sticks like sh&% 🙂 Also there have been reports of chemicals attacking it and discoloring it or making it soft. However application is supposed to be easy.. just paint it on in two applications.. If you have to touch up in the future you can just paint on a new layer over the old one. Supposedly it fuses to itself. Also it is supposed to be very gripy for traction both dry or wet and much esier on the skin. We have found a supplier that sells this type of material for a cost that we think we could do all the non skid on a DE38 for around $350.

However it is a milage may varry kinda thing... not a lot of track record... some great reviews and some medoicre ones and a few real hate it ones. we are willing to take the risk and try and will document and comment through and after the process.. Probably this spring or summer. 🙂

I am always willing to push the envolope and try new things if it isn't to cost prohibitive 🙂 I will have to dig out the paper work but I will try and find the lowest cost distributer of this stuff we found.

It looks like the same stuff that http://www.durabakcompany.com/ sells or http://www.grizzlygrip.com/

Durabak was about 120 bucks a gallon.

Grizzlygrip was about 80 bucks a gallon if I remember there was an upcharge for the uv additives maybe.

The vender we found is around  70 dollars a gallon if bought by the 5 gallon bucket....

all of them offer the product in different colors. we were plannin on a sand color.. light enough to not get to hot but with enough color to it to not show stains that bad if it does get some small ones. Not to mention that is the color of the existing non skid and it looks nice.

scott

paint with sand in it should last many years.. I think the interlux version should last many years.

Our non skid on valkyr is factory which is sand in a polyurethane paint? I believe is 30+ years old and still works as non skid very well.. it just has lots of nicks and cracks, stains and very large areas where we have ground the non skid away and fixed soft spots in the deck. Cosmetically it looks aweful.. like the boat has been through a war and lost 🙂 We are hoping the urethane paint will just cover the old non skid and fill in any chips or cracks and seal them. According to a couple of different vendors for this stuff it should bond like crazy to the old non skid and form a many mil thick rubbery surface that totally seals everything under it. I'm more worried about if we decide to take it off how to do that 🙂 probably chisels pulling up it and the old nonskid under it.

Lol.. I answered the recent questions without going back and reading the whole thread.. Had forgotten how long ago it had been. This stuff is tough and the most comfortable grippy surface I have ever felt on a boat deck. I forgot to mention that the observations others had made about it covering over cracked and worn existing nonskid was totally correct. It bonds to and seals everything under it. Just make sure it has some mechanical bite to adhere to such as a sanded surface and that it is cleaned. We sanded and scrubbed a couple times with TSP (TriSodiumPhosphate) in a strong solution to make sure there were no oils on deck to affect adhesion. Also now with the rubbery texture we don't get cracks or chips when stuff drops and hits the deck.

it really grimes up over time and is hard to clean once the mildew gets a hold. A pressure washer wont get it clean on its own. Normal soap won't touch it. Simple green and purple stuff cleaner and or vinegar did some but didn't leave it new clean, it still had mildew staining shadows everywhere. We used home depot extra strong industrial clorox and just sprayed it straight onto the deck at full concentration and then misted water over that and used a stiff brush to scrub the shit out of it. Let it sit for 15, 20 or more minutes keeping it wet with a mist  of water if it looked like it would dry out, scrubbed again and rinsed. Looked like new. It was vicious on us using that strong a concentration of clorox/bleach. I recommend a day windy enough to carry fumes away 🙂 or wear a mask that can handle them. We were worried that the chemicals would damage the coating or affect it negatively but it doesn't seem to have affected it at all.

Yep... the very rough texture does encourage mildew if you leave the boat unattended for long. Months not days or weeks. However I would never do the paint with sand in it I have bleed on to many boat decks over the years while kneeling or moving around and leaving my top layer of skin on my knees, elbows, hands etc.. when falling or rubbing on it. The rubberized paint and particles I used have great grip but don't tear the skin. It even feels softer to sit on. I wouldn't go back having tried it, even with the slightly higher cleaning work. If you only use your boat once in a while I can see doing the paint and sand with a low profile sand papery texture. To live aboard or use a lot the comfort of the rubberized product is great.

I made companion way boards out of 1/2 inch acrylic. I have been doing that to all my boats the last .. wow.. 20 years. It makes a huge difference in light below and able to see out on rainy/cold/snow/hot ac days. It is one of my go to live aboard projects along with fans, lots of led lights, screens on hatches and waterproof fabric wind scoops for hatches to catch air or suck air out of the boat and then last but not least canvas/sunbrella/tarp etc sunshades/awnings for over coach roof on exposed deck. Sometimes cover the whole deck 5ft or more high with the ability to clip one side lower. It is more problematic with that large a piece of fabric shading the boat if the wind picks up while anchored but other than that it is the bomb for cool and even dry. I recommend the color white  especially the further south your boat is.

I will let you know my rule for core.. 100% seal and encapsulate any penetrations whether they go through half way or all the way. There are actually two reasons both with lots of value.

1st ......is that no matter how well you seal it eventually in a year or 20 years you will get water into the core and then have to fix de-lamination. Once water gets in, the first sunny day it turns to vapor that penetrates large areas and you can never dry it totally without pulling it apart. Moisture in there is long term problems. with the foam core in the DE's it takes years and years compared to wood but Eventually you have issues. I would be surprised to see a DE that hasn't had this issue in one degree or another. Our boat is solid but it has had parts of the cockpit re-cored, a little place on a side deck and another larger area in the bow. It's not a job outside anyone's capabilities to do but it is a bit of labor. Pretty much any boat brand of that era has the same issues if it is cored. Deck coring wouldn't slow me down on owning an old boat, coring of the hull and I would not only walk away but run from owning a boat old or new. I consider every project that pulls old hard ware off a opportunity to upgrade that part of the boat. To make my life easy when doing this I just buy the premixed calking tubes of west systems thickened epoxy at west marine or better yet at lowe's hardware if they carry it there. Last time a few years ago that I purchased it, it cost 10 dollars or so a tube at lowes and 15ish at west marine. It's a really clean lack of labor way to do small projects like that when your replacing rails, or pulling and replacing winches or whatever the hardware is.

2nd....   leaks that get into the core usually don't come out inside the boat at the bottom of the penetration into the overhead. They go down and then run through the core and build up water or find an exit point for or aft of the ingress point. So  you might know you have a leak but not know where it is, You seal where it is coming in and that just forces more water to live in the core without leaking out anymore or until it finds another place to drip out. If you seal and core and then have a leak there you know that that is where the leak is period.

When working on coring and filling holes, I like to use Allen wrenches. I always have a plethora of them in my tool box from all the electronics that ship with them to open battery compartments or other adjustments on thing so it's easy just to grab one and put it in a chuck on a drill and use it to wallow out the foam core after opening the hole 1/8 to 1/4 inch larger diameter than the hole you need for your fastener. once wallowed out I tape the bottom and inject the epoxy, use the allen key by hand to make sure any bubbles or air pockets get pulled out of the wallowed out area. Fill till it domes up a little and let it cure. next day I might cut the domed up area off flush if it hasn't shrunk down level or concave. Then if it's hard enough drill it back out.

After the second time of chasing leaks I couldn't find due to this issue, and the first time with a soft spot that needed to be re cored I became a convert to just doing it right. If you have to money to pay someone else to fix then it probably won't bother you much other than your pocket book but having to do it myself its one of those things I don't ever want to do again.

off topic

I have a similar pet peeve with marine heads. I will never have one on a boat I own again. First project is put a composting head in. After twice fixing the flapper valve on a marine toilet and twice cleaning up after a leak or overflow out of a holding tank in to a boat I decided I never ever wanted to do it again. 🙂 turned out great as composting heads don't have odor like a toilet/holding tank does so once changed over the boat never has that odor and I have never had to repair the toilet/septic system again. No pump outs, recovered all the space where holding tank was for storage. Dropped weight by amount of full tank, plumbing and toilet. Commercial composting heads only weight a few lbs.