Nonskid deck paint

The time has come to get some paint on the deck!

We vacuumed and wiped the nonskid areas, taped them off and wiped em once more with awlprep for good measure. We are using Kiwi Grip nonskid paint, a product I have never used before. I called the paint Rep to find out what undercoat primer I needed. I told him we had areas of bare fiberglass, epoxy, and gel coat, all sanded down good with eighty grit paper.

He laughed and said what we'd done was overkill and none of it requires a primer...... paint away! He went on to state that the stuff would stick to a cars windshield and if you left it on for a week you'd need a razor blade to get it off. 

I took the gallon can on deck, opened it up and was surprised to see what looked like a gallon of cream colored mayonnaise. I scooped some up with the paint stir stick and it clung to it even when I inverted the stick. No wonder they recommended spreading it on deck with a notched trowel! The directions tell you to work a couple square feet at a time so I started at the bow and placed several dollops of paint onto the deck and spread it with a notched trowel. Once I had it looking pretty evenly spread out I took thier special "loopy goopy" three inch roller and started rolling it out. The roller covering looks like the loose weave of an old style copper pot scrubbing pad. The concept is to roll over the area about four or five times which incorporates air into the loose weave of the roller then into the paint making paint bubbles. After the fourth or fifth rolling the bubbles burst and the paint forms little peaks, gravity takes over and the peaks fall and soften into the nonskid texture.

The rolling out procedure takes only a few minutes and the texture seems to level and even itself out very nicely. The paint has a working time of twenty five minutes and the rep said if you want a more aggressive texture then wait about twenty minutes or so and roll it out once more. It stands the peaks back up but this time they wont fall over. Be forewarned that after it cures for a couple months it gets harder and harder and we call the aggressive texture bloody knees nonskid cause that's what you'll get if you fall on it.

I liked the way the texture looked and decided to pass on the more aggressive "bloody knees" method.

I must say I am very impressed with the stuff. It hides imperfections like nothing I've ever seen before, they just disappear under this stuff and it levels itself nicely when you roll it out. Its a one part, one coat product and as long as you roll it out as directed and take the tape of the masked areas within a few minutes of rolling it out its the easiest product I've ever used on a boat. My only complaint would be that its perhaps a little too easy and with products like this people don't need shops like ours to put it on! All kidding aside.....I really wish we had more products like this; it goes on easy, looks good, and stays where you put it. Oh, and it blends right in if you have to roll on a little more the next day because you (cough) stuck yer finger in it when you peeled the tape off (cough).