Painting the decks

[Cheechako]

Originally Posted by Rex Delay

I have been contemplating this for a couple of years but keep putting it off. Waiting for a neighbor to do it first. My decks are gelcoat with painted non skid. The plan is to only deal with the non skid portion and use Kiwi Grip. All hardware is mounted on the gelcoat so no issue except for a lot of taping. Plan is to tape, wait for the right day and go for it. Liveaboard should not make any difference, go for a hike or other distraction for at least several hours while things cure. The biggest challenge is to match the color or accept contrasting colors. That is what has stopped me, I am lousy at matching colours or choosing acceptable contrast.

You might want to think twice about Kiwi Grip, or at least buy a small amount and get your impressions on a test. I found it to be rubbery and rather thin. It strikes me as latex house paint. I did one hatch on my boat with it. It's quite thin and when dry, I could pull on an edge (that had bled onto the smooth gel coat) and it stretched like a latex glove. I highly suspect, that once you use this product, there will be no going back.... kind of like once you put latex paint on a house, you cant sand it and cant put real paint over it. If your boat is pretty nice and you are just doing the non skid, you should probably use Awlgrip or a good product like that. If you dont mind a fairly rough industrial surface then a product called Dura Bak is super durable, thick, dries rock hard and sticks like glue. Just my 2 cents worth having use all 3 products at least once....

[Beersmith]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

You might want to think twice about Kiwi Grip, or at least buy a small amount and get your impressions on a test. I found it to be rubbery and rather thin. It strikes me as latex house paint. I did one hatch on my boat with it. It's quite thin and when dry, I could pull on an edge (that had bled onto the smooth gel coat) and it stretched like a latex glove. I highly suspect, that once you use this product, there will be no going back.... kind of like once you put latex paint on a house, you cant sand it and cant put real paint over it. If your boat is pretty nice and you are just doing the non skid, you should probably use Awlgrip or a good product like that. If you dont mind a fairly rough industrial surface then a product called Dura Bak is super durable, thick, dries rock hard and sticks like glue. Just my 2 cents worth having use all 3 products at least once....

Interesting. This is really the first "negative" review of kiwi-grip I've read. I was considering Interlux Non-Skid but with such high praise on this forum (and others)...kiwi-grip became my go-to.

Has anyone else experienced the same negative aspects of kiwi-grip? Could the "thinness" be overcome with extra coats??

[Cheechako]

Yeah, there are good reviews on the web from people who did more than just a hatch. So I dont know what the deal is. I would be interested in knowing if the stuff is latex based, but dont imagine they are going to let us know that. If you are leaving your non skid texture, then really you wont need to try to "stipple" Kiwi Grip as you roll it on. Reading the web....A lot of the application problems seem to be trying to get a consitant texture with it. Ditto for Dura Bak in that regard!
Just checked the Distributors website and it says: "hard acrylic polymer" I dont know if that's latex or not. I know housepaint is "acrylic" latex. KG is not hard in the sense that Awlgrip or Durabak is from my experience... wierd...

[nwdiver]

I setup and taped everything, then painted the deck areas edging into the unprotected non skid areas, THEN taped the non skid areas and did them as my second step. It save allot of taping and the bit of paint from the deck didn’t affect my painting of the non skid areas. And I recommend a couple of days work in pulling and rebedding anything that’s easy to access, rebedding is always low on my list because I don’t want to screw up the deck paint.

[bstreep]

Originally Posted by nwdiver

I setup and taped everything, then painted the deck areas edging into the unprotected non skid areas, THEN taped the non skid areas and did them as my second step. It save allot of taping and the bit of paint from the deck didn’t affect my painting of the non skid areas. And I recommend a couple of days work in pulling and rebedding anything that’s easy to access, rebedding is always low on my list because I don’t want to screw up the deck paint.

Yes, there is no need to tape the non-skid, since it is to be painted later.