Hi Mako224… I am the creator of Nowacs. I don’t know Mik (apart from a brief email discussion about the product) but I appreciate the feedback he has posted on here.
Yes I am currently selling nowacs at the lowest price I can to just cover the initial set-up and production costs.
A little update:
I stuck a small piece of Nowacs on a new (glossy) PU surfboard after wiping it clean. A couple of days later, the Nowacs could be pulled off with some difficulty (it stretches a lot) and most of the 3M glue layer remained on the board. I think that is good, because** if** silicon remained stuck on glue (on fibreglass), solvents could not penetrate to the glue and removal would be very hard.
I also compared the weight a a piece of the red deck grip to the Nowacs, dry and wet. I thought the red carpet-like stuff would increase significantly when wet, but surprisingly, it did not. It is much lighter than the Nowacs.
I think the Nowacs will be shunned by the high performance, super-light surfboard crew. But it might be the prime choice for heavier, durable and beautiful boards, like some wooden boards.
My experimental board is near ready for the Nowacs, once it arrives. It has apparently been snapped in half and mended, fin box ripped out and put back in poorly, and then painted to incompetently hide the damage.
Before I stick the Nowacs on, I need to do some more measurements, so I have it on record before it goes on it’s maiden voyage and gets some real damage.
Would be perfect for the NSP crowd.
I have applied the Nowacs to a board and surfed it a few times.
It is about as grippy as wax, maybe better, but maybe not as good as the rough deck grip stuff that I am used to.
It is hard to tell if it is less grippy or just different. It was interesting to find out how much I got used to the very good and consistent grip from the red carpet stuff I have on several boards. I bought half a roll of it for very cheap. It was also interesting to experience how used I am to the 1mm superstretch wetsuit I wear (to keep my skin on) when surfing boards with the red deck grip.
Surfing in board shorts on the Nowacs board, it was disorientating during wipe-outs to not have that little bit of positive buoyancy from the wetsuit. And the Nowacs felt different under my feet when popping up, making me a bit nervous about slipping, but I never actually slipped. The board is also brand new to me, although it is a close copy of my favourite type of board (TSA 8’0’’ McCoy Nugget converted to single fin).
I surfed in shorts for 45min on the Nowacs and got mild skin irritation, I think it would have been very similar on wax, because my skin is not used to it.
I also surfed the board with wetsuit and there is no slipping whatsoever, very good grip, as expected from my preliminary bench tests with various rashies, shorts, wetsuits and booties. This silicone stuff is grippy under any material I have tried out.
The board was also used for more than one hour by an absolute novice surfer in a bikini and caused no significant rash on knees or anywhere else.
Application of the Nowacs to the board was a bit more difficult than other deck grips I have used, because it is very stretchy. The backing is not stretchy, and the force needed to pull it off during application will stretch the silicone enough so that the ends of patches do not line up any more. It was easily fixed by carefully cutting it back with a Stanley knife after sticking it to the board.
The 3M adhesive backing is just as good as it is on all the other applications you might have used it in.
I weighed the backing film that was left over after application of the Nowacs and calculated the weight of the patch on the board as 0.684kg.
I’m very happy with it so far and recommend it for surfboards for which a bit of extra weight does not hurt.
Looks perfect for on the floor of a shower stall.
After a month of frequent testing, I can report that the grip of the Nowacs is excellent. Very consistent and therefore predictable.
It stays on the board very well so far.
I also tried to use it as a nose guard for the board, but that experiment is still inconclusive. If any stretch is applied to the Nowacs while you stick it on, then it will pull itself off again eventually. And it is tricky to get it stuck on the nose without any stretch forces in the material.
Nowacs can be removed very well without solvent use. Even without tool use. The silicone layer is strong enough to remain largely intact when pulled off gradually, and the glue layer which remains stuck to the board can be removed by strong, gradual thumb rubs. Unless you have True Blue Brickie Thumbs, you will not be able to remove a whole lot of Nowacs in one session, without getting blisters on your thumbs. But for your average small ding repair, it will come off clean within a few minutes.
YMMV once Nowacs has been on the board for years, rather than couple of months, but that’s all I can attest so far.
I removed the tail pad area of the Nowacs in order to install a Shark Shield decal antenna on my board.
The Nowacs was still holding on well, but could be pulled off with careful attention, almost without it ripping.
On one of the two pieces that had to be removed, most glue stayed on the silicone, on the other, most stayed on the board.
In both cases, application of citrus based “bio-solvent” turned the glue into jelly.
If you have to remove Nowacs, take your time, wait 10min between citrus solvent applications, and if you are lucky you can even pull off large intact strips of the glue stuff all at once.
The ‘old’ Nowacs feels more grippy than the new pieces. It showed no signs of ageing or wear.
(And, yes, the fin box needs work, I’ve started to fix it…)
Eva foam from china probably better but I’ll give it a go
Is this Nowacs product still available? And if so where can i purchase some
I’ve been using this stuff, and I like it. It’s kind of a wax like substance on a clear substrate. I cut it into strips and place them about an inch or 2 apart to get more coverage from the pads. Very reasonable pricing. I use a roller to get this stuff pushed down.
https://www.viskus.com/product-category/surf-grip/
This is another product I’ve used. It’s good, but more expensive. Different from the viskus product. More like a thin more grippy stomp pad.
https://www.surfcohawaii.com/Wax-Mat-s/159.htm
