Options for renewing non-skid. WITHOUT painting.

[Midday Gun]

I'm just wondering if there are any ways to renew or restore the non skid deck of my 1986 MGC 27 without resorting to paint?

At the moment the deck looks pretty good in when dry and in direct sunlight, but when any water gets on it then you can see lots of discolouration and it looks quite ugly.

I've tried the usual oxalic acid, Y10 etc, which has helped, but not made a vast difference.
I've had a few boats with painted non-skid, it holds onto muck, doesn't last very well and IMO never looks as good as the gelcoat.

I know its possible to spray gel top sides, is it possible to renew the non skid in anyway? I've seen non skid flow coat advertised, if the deck was properly prepared, would this work over the existing non skid?

Thanks for any advice.

[Diesel Bill]

Hi Midday Gun, The previous owner of my boat had the yard in La Paz, Mex. grind down all the old non skid and lay in new non skid mat cut to the same pattern. My only gripe is that the new mat is not sunk deep enough into the deck and stands a little proud above where it should. Other wise they did a pretty good job with it.

[Midday Gun]

Thanks for the input. Sounds like quite a drawn out process.

I wonder if suitably prepped, one of the non-skid formulae of flow coat would adhere to the existing deck?

[UNCIVILIZED]

There are a huge variety of excellent glue on nonskid surfaces. Treadmaster makes a few dozen types. And there's TBC. Some cork based varieties, & others. Also, there are various deck molds, or mold like agents, which when used in conjunction with gelcoat leave crisp, sharp looking nonskid on decks. And they can often be used with paints as well.

Some folks even use window screen material (bug netting) for this. Though of course it needs to have the proper non-stick agents on it's surfaces, & the proper size weave to work well. But it works somewhat along the same principles as does peel ply for working with epoxy, in that you wait until things are cured, or almost cured, & then lift it off, to reveal a nice diamond tread pattern on the deck.

Then of course there's; sand, salt, polymer beads, etc. which one either mixes in with the paint/coating, or applies on top of it while it's still wet. Followed by overcoating it. Ditto Kiwigrip, etc.
And the ancient standby, skateboard tape. Which comes in a multiplicity of different colors, & grip levels.

Consider too that the nonskid on a boat's topsides needn't be the same over the entire deck. For example for a touch of class you can add a decoratively shaped pad of treadmaster to a boat's sidedecks where folks most often board her. Or do the same around deck hardware that would otherwise bang on the deck. Such as spinnaker guy blocks.

And I'm a fan of 1-2" wide strips of 1/4" thick teak (or even 1/8" thick), with similar sized gaps in between them, in areas which need heavy cleaning quite often. Such as the first several feet of foredeck area that commonly get coated with the muck & mud from ground tackle when raising the anchor.

The gaps are paramount in that they give the mud you're hosing off a clear channel to flow through in order to exit the foredeck & go over the side. And such is the same reasoning behind the smooth raceways between patches of nonskid on the rest of a boat's decks. Otherwise it gets very difficult to get them completerly clean, no matter how much you scrub, or pressure wash.

PS: It often pays to make up a couple of test panels using your nonskid candidates, in order to see if you like it, & whether or not it's agressiveness meets with your tastes.