The restoration of my ZIPS longboard is at pre-hot coat stage.
I wonder if anyone of you have ever done a non-skid hot coat over the deck, the same way thay do over the deck of custom sailboards (first hotcoat then sand a block of PU foam over the wet deck and let it set, no sanding).
I know the grit will damage the wetsuit more then hard wax does but, will it be so abrasive??
Being that I have used salt, sugar and Acrylic Dust in sailboard building. I recommend that you not texture the surfboard at all. It will wear out your wetsuit quickly and Acrylic Dust will make you bleed if bare skinned! Excpect for foam covered boards, the old wax will stay the number one non-skid in surfboards.
Aloha . There was a product called “Slipcheck” when I was a kid … “long time ago” … It came it a spray can and worked good … Still I did’nt have it all over my board . just on the nose and tail … I think they still sell it now … maybe it is a little different now
I have a friend who really likes the sugar thing, solid surfer but kind of a cruiser. I personally prefer wax. As long as I am using the right wax for the water temp, I never have a problem slipping. Besides, stretching and waxing my board are part of the ritual.
In the archives you can find the name - Volcum 115, I think - of the stuff Dale uses on the mats. I have used it on some boards and it works great, but it is colored (Black, gray, white) so you couldn’t see that bitchin’ deck through it. I used it in trunks and didn’t have any problems either, it’s like a sealent w/fiber in it and it stays “grippy.”
you can get stuff called El Gripo in a can and its like spray on sandpaper, comes in a couple colors, and really tears you up. my buddy puts it on the noses of his heavy logs for noseriding, a little more of a challenge, but works good
i use a mix of acrylic deck dust and sugar, a trick learned from the Naish guys, it gives you the bumbs and the valleys… the naish guys use Urathane, spray the roughed up deck down, then sprinkle on the mix. i have tied it over a gloss coat and the acrylic dust just sank leaving a textured but still slick surface. get the finest deck dust they make. and use at your own risk.
Howzit jjp, Ever tried doing a textured deck,tape off lammed deck area about 3" above center of the rail. and put hot coat on and squeegee it. Then tape off rail and where the texture ends and hot coat the rails as usual. It can be abrasive but it works.Aloha,kokua
last year on the boat that i worked on, we had to grind down and repaint the deck because there was a lot of rust forming, but to make our deck topcoat really grippy but not abrasive, once we were done, we mixed shredded tennis balls into our paint. Maybe that could be used in the hotcoat if you don’t want something terribly abrasive?