I have some deck crazing on the forward and side decks. It is only crazed in the nonskid areas. The smooth strips between non skid areas are not showing any signs of crazing. I think this is relatively common in boats like mine which have been exposed to the hot sun for many years.
I recently had a guy do some gelcoat repairs and asked about the crazing on deck. How would he repair it? He proposed to spray the non skid areas with tinted gelcoat to match the current light grey color. In effect he was going to paint the deck with gelcoat. This sounds like a reasonable approach given that gelcoat is thicker than paint and ought to fill the tiny cracks pretty effectively. Having said that I have only heard folks discuss re-painting decks not re-gelcoating them. I wonder if any of you have any insight into whether the gelcoat approach makes sense. Has anyone done this?
By the way, in addition to the crazing, the nonskid paint is wearing through and showing the underlying white color of the deck so I would really like to deal with the appearance of the non skid as well as the crazing.
I have exactly the problem the Mike describes (crazing just in the non-skid and patches of missing color) and I’m considering exactly the solution that rvivian suggests. I’ve read everything I could find online about Kiwi Grip and haven’t found anything negative. People who have used it seem to like it and I haven’t come across anyone who describes it as anything but positive, but I also haven’t really read about anyone who has had it on their boat for a long time. Most installations seem to be new or maybe a year old. My remaining question is about longevity.
Just by “feel”, not by experience, Kiwi Grip looks pretty good to me, too.
Thanks for that kiwigrip pointer. I had seen this stuff before but only gave it a glancing look because I really had the deck low on my to do list. I spent some time on the Kiwigrip site and read a bunch of reviews elsewhere. it looks like the ideal DYI solution. I particularly like the water base chemistry. Its kinda counter-intuitive that a water base paint is going to be satisfactory in a marine environment but seems like a lot of users are pretty happy with it. I think I’ll buy a "test’ liter and do some experimenting before I take the leap.
Mike,
Just a thought - and this has probably already crossed your mind: I don’t think you can just cover your gel coat crazing over. No matter how good kiwigrip is, existing crazing will likely transmit through over time. My guess, you will need to grind down the gel coat in the crazed areas before re-coating. Probably a good idea to do so to verify that the crazing is not down into the laminate and that there is no delamination or moisture in the deck where the crazing has occurred.
I have a good deal of crazing on the deck of my F38, and look forward to hearing about your results.
Bob
Rather than create a new post, I thought I’d add to this old one since it’s relevant. I also had a lot of crazing on the starboard bench of my F38, hut practically nowhere else. I have ground each spider crack down to fiberglass if it extended through the gelcoat (a lot did not) and will be fairing with thickened epoxy. My plan (at the moment) is to repaint the non-skid with Awlgrip since I’ve used it before on another boat, then repaint the white areas with AlexSeal because it looks amazingly easy to roll. AlexSeal has a non-skid but I can’t seem to get ahold of their technical department and so I’ll probably go with what I know. Or should I try to repair and buff the gelcoat? Thoughts?
I also removed all the deck hardware, reamed out the core, and refilled with epoxy to create waterproof “plugs” for all the through deck holes. Oh what joy my life has been lately. I keep reminding myself this is a one-and-done job. By the way, I had leakage under the very forward screws on both the port and starboard handrails where the gelcoat had cracked underneath. Maybe it’s from the deck flexing more in that area? The core didn’t feel wet for very far inside so maybe I caught it in time. Was just curious that both sides were like that. I plan to rebed new PlasTeak handrails and other hardware with 4000, which has worked extremely well in the past. Any input on all this would be great to hear! It’s too late to turn back now…
I’ve purchased a piece of the Gibco Flex-Mold to repair the spider cracks in my non-skid this year with some tinted gelcoat…will report back with how it works. Pattern for my Freedom is #301.
On a previous boat, which had this problem, I used two pack deck paint with sand added to the mix (International 501, I think). It worked really well, and lasted for years – I saw the boat ten years later.
Two drawbacks; it sanded through my oilskin trousers where I had used it on the cockpit side deck, and the stuff it scuffed off any dark soled shoes was a b*** to remove.
I have seen, for sale, crushed walnut shells. These apparently give a good non-slip texture, but without the abrasive effect of the sand. If I were to need to do this again, that’s what I’d use. A lot easier than replacing the Treadmaster on my F35, which I did a few years ago.