Deck covering

[Dan_W]

Hi,
I've installed the new fuel tanks in my old Monk. I was looking for opinions on deck coverings. The deck will be 3/4" marine ply that will be epoxy cover on the top and the edges. The bottom will be treated with Cupernol (sp). It's a copper based wood preservative. Nasty stuff, I don't think you can get it anymore but my Dad had a can sitting on the shelf for many years. I need ideas of what to put on the deck for a final finish. It needs to have some slip resistance and be able to weather well. The deck is exposed much of the time and is self draining.
Thanks,
Dan

[WFK]

Hi Dan......
Stop with the cuprinol! It is nasty stuff and certainly not needed. If the decks are to be coated with epoxy, then the underside should be as well. You can pre-coat the bottom side before applying. Just a thought here and you can take it for what it's worth, but 2 layers of 3/8" ply will give you a much stiffer, stronger deck, plus far easier to apply than 3/4".
There are various grits of non-skid compound that can either be added to the paint or sprinkled in after laying down your paint. You can get as fancy as you want by masking off the areas that no no-skid is required, and a sceond coat will be needed
Bill

[TimothyB]

...the cheap way to do non skid is to sprinkle planty of salt over the top of the final, wet paint layer on deck. Then when the paint is dry, hose it off. This dissolves the salt and makes the paint reasonably non skid.

The salt should be coarse salt.. like rock salt for roads but ground up a bit more.

Easy to try this.. just epoxy and paint up a piece of scrap plywood and try it out. See if you like it. Nail it down to the ground somehow and test the non skid-ness by wetting it down with water, and then diesel, then diesel and water.

In the navy we used the nasty ground glass stuff.. oof. You really had to be careful with that stuff, and god forbid you face plant on deck coming on board after liberty call.

[paul oman]

Hello

The common method is to use a somewhat flexible epoxy paint or resin and broadcast to excess (completely cover) the surface with colored sands, rubber grit, or best of all, gound walnut shell (which can be sanded off in the future).

Let dry then sweep off the excess grit and topcoat with either a clear epoxy and UV blocking topocoat (usually a special LPU urethane similar to auto clear coat) or just a few coats of the LPU clear. - Or you can simply tocoat the grit with epoxy and them topcoat the epoxy with latex paint of any color you want. The latex will be more color stable and an enamel and will also have a flat non gloss look, common on anti slip surfaces.

Regards

paul oman
progessive epoxy polymers