Hello everyone. I’m facing a problem with the non-skid decking of a 1960 SPORT 13. I want to sand down, inside, and out, and spray new gel coat in the original fashion.
What should I do in order to save the original non-skid pattern?
[The boat] has a coat of paint on now. Spraying over this would most likely fill in the cracks. I was thinking a very light sandblast--I do mean very light--to blow out some of the paint left on the surface.
Thanks for reading.
Non-skid Deck Preservation
Re: Non-skid Deck Preservation
I think it will be hopeless to retain the original non-skid embossed pattern in the deck after you first sand, then sand-blast, then finally apply a new top coat of resin.
The non-skid pattern was imprinted into the gel coat when it was sprayed into a contact mold. You cannot recreate that process with any repair. About the best you could possibly do is to take an impression of the present non-skid pattern--albeit already filled in with paint--using some sort of mold pattern compound. Then, after spraying on new gel coat, you could ATTEMPT--no guarantee of success--to imprint the old pattern back onto the new layer of gel coat while it begins to cure.
Usually the method of casting an impression of the non-skid into a new flexible tooling is limited to repair of small areas. I don't recall any account of trying to use the method to cast into a new layer of resin for the entire non-skid area.
The non-skid pattern was imprinted into the gel coat when it was sprayed into a contact mold. You cannot recreate that process with any repair. About the best you could possibly do is to take an impression of the present non-skid pattern--albeit already filled in with paint--using some sort of mold pattern compound. Then, after spraying on new gel coat, you could ATTEMPT--no guarantee of success--to imprint the old pattern back onto the new layer of gel coat while it begins to cure.
Usually the method of casting an impression of the non-skid into a new flexible tooling is limited to repair of small areas. I don't recall any account of trying to use the method to cast into a new layer of resin for the entire non-skid area.
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whalerdoc930
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sat Mar 17, 2018 10:48 am
Re: Non-skid Deck Preservation
Thanks for the advice. I may just lightly remove any flaking paint and just paint the interior with Topside in Boston Whaler Blue. To me retaining the original pattern outweighs using gelcoat, especially when there are so many high gloss paints available.
Re: Non-skid Deck Preservation
Watch this nicely produced presentation of the restoration of a classic Boston Whaler 13-footer as performed by Jamestown Distributors with their TotalBoat paint products. See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUOlWPvgLfQ
In the comments to the presentation, a viewer describes their technique for cleaning the deck non-skid areas:
And (as also mentioned in comments about the presentation) be sure to preserve the original stencil number on the boat's inboard transom center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUOlWPvgLfQ
In the comments to the presentation, a viewer describes their technique for cleaning the deck non-skid areas:
[For] sanding the textured [non-skid] part of the deck, [use] a stainless steel grill brush. Using dish soap and water, scrub [the deck in] alternating directions with the texture. The stainless brush effectively cleans and sands the low part in the texture. Then...run a sanding block with 220 grit paper over the top to clean up the top of the texture. Use a microfiber cloth wet with acetone to clean out the texture.
And (as also mentioned in comments about the presentation) be sure to preserve the original stencil number on the boat's inboard transom center.