There are two general schools of thought on non-skid. One is that the non-skid areas need to be non-skid, but not at the expense of appearance or comfort. As such, there are a lot of product that incorporate sand in a hard two part or one part deck paint. Think Interlux or Awlgrip. The benefits here are easy to clean surface, that you could walk on all day without your feet getting sore. However, a hard easy to clean surface does not sound to me like something that will be very aggressive in holding power.
The other school of thought is that the non-skid areas are to be as non-skid as possible, and is approached as more of a safety issue. This is how I think of it. If I have to go on deck while the boat is thrashing about, and the nonskid keeps me from possibly slipping overboard, then that is what I want. This is where you would see your Treadmaster or other applied products. The downside to these products is they tend to collect dirt easier than some others, I hear. Also, they can be uncomfortable underfoot.
The Durabak is a rubberized, single part paint. It has rubber granules mixed in the product and is used mainly in industrial applications. I read how some users had punished the Durabak by dragging huge buoys, anchors and the like across the deck, without damaging the surface. It sounded like what I wanted, and was about 1/4 the price of Treadmaster, which made it economical for my use.
Prep
My existing non-skid was a molded gelcoat pattern that looked like burlap cloth. There were lots of pits where dirt, water and mold could collect, and was impossible to get clean. Since the Durabak prep called for a 40 grit sanded surface for fiberglass or gelcoat, I decided to just grind it off. I was aided in this by the design of the deck mold, where each nonskid area is built up about 3/16" over the regular smooth surfaces. This allowed me to use my 6" Bosch ROS with a 40 grit pad to easily sand off the nonskid right up to the edges with little fear of touching the freshly polished smooth areas below.
It took about 2-3 days of sanding to get all surfaces down to an equal grade. I think if I had it to do over again, I may have sought out a more aggressive grit or machine to get the bulk of the old crap off, as it took longer than I anticipated.
I used my shop vac to clean up the dust. As you can imagine, it is a very messy job, but the good news was since the material was mostly gel coat, there was no fiberglass itching. I did manage to get dust everywhere though, and it took about 4 hours to vacuum everything up.
Taping off
The next step was to tape off each non skid area. I used a combination of automotive detail tape, fine line tape, and regular blue painters tape.
First, I used a blue 3M 1/4" wide flexible automotive tape to tape off each curved corner.
Next, I taped off all the straight runs with tan 3M 5/8" automotive Fine Line tape. This tape does not bend tight corners at all.
Then, I filled in the areas in between with regular blue 3M painter tape from Home Depot. This is a detail of the final product
Painting
With everything taped off, it was time to go. We did a final wipedown with Toulene, and started painting. The best thing would have been to paint each area, do the subsequent coats just as the prior coat was tacking up, and then pull the tape while the paint was a little soft. I did not have the time to do each area separately, so we just did it all, and came back after the paint had dried enough to walk on.
Here is a pretty good example of what the surface looks like:
Here, things are pretty much all done. Ready to pull tape.
Tape coming off:
All done!
I can tell you that this surface is very aggressive, and really does grip well. If I'm working on deck, I need to have socks on or my feet start to hurt after an hour or so. I've since done some work and do not worry a bit about damaging this surface. Stuff just bounces off, and I cannot imagine anything short of an anchor being purposely thrown against it gouging it. I hope I never have to get it off.
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