Cabin sole refinish

[felizcortez]

I have a teak and holly veneer plywood floor. I'm considering refinishing with TotalBoat Halcyon finish and was wondering if anyone has any experience with it? We live on the boat full time so the floors are in need of a refinish as some of the old finish has worn through.

[tkeithlu]

Well, I do have a comment or so. You don't say where you are, but if you are near a metropolitan area, you might check in with the people who refinish residential floors. They have the specialized tools and the experience to make refinishing quick and not terribly expensive.

There's myth out there, one I used to believe, that somewhere there is a super hard varnish available only to the people who refinish gymnasium floors. Nope. Gymnasium floors look good because no one grinds sand-loaded sneakers into them.

Good luck with your project. I bet it will be beautiful.

[skipmac]

Researching this as well but my main concern is non-skid properties more than super hard, wear forever finish.

But regarding hard finishes, there are products that are sold for gym floor finishing that advertise wear resistance (but of course we all know how accurate and honest ads are). Also my son in law is a builder and does a LOT of floor finishing and there are some products he swears by. Will ask him to tell me (again) the brand.

I'm investigating the use of non skid additives. I found an interesting non skid additive that is kind of clear when added to varnish. Looks similar to microspheres or something one would add to epoxy for a thickener. My idea would be to add it to the finish coat and paint it only on the light colored holly (really maple these days) where it wouldn't show but still make good non skid.

[gonesail]

some will argue this .. but use varnish .. not polyurethane. varnish gives a better grip to boat shoes and bare feet. also I would not use a water based varnish .. not as durable.

[bwindrope]

I've done the floors in my house and on my boat with DuraSeal. Stuff is ridiculously immune to damage but hard to find. Way better than any of that Home Depot crap. Our dog runs around on it full time with long nails and it doesn't even show a scratch. My solution to slick floors is to have bath mats in one spot and I placed adhesive grip strips on a really sloped part of my sole near my head. In places that are flat, it has not been an issue. Just make sure you fully remove all the old varnish with a chemical safe strip or sand it deeper than you think, as when you apply the new varnish any old stuff will show up strongly and show marking. Good luck.