KiwiGrip Non-Skid

Posted on April 8, 2011 inFixing It Up!

The standard choices for non-skid on a boat are filler mixed in with a paint, filler you add to a paint, and filler you sprinkle on wet paint. KiwiGrip, a New Zealand product, does it differently. The non-skid properties come from the texture laid on the product after it is spread on the deck. I read about this product in an article in the January 2011 issue of Good Old Boat magazine. The technique described seemed alot simpler than that of conventional products. And the application looked like it would easily solve one of my other issues: covering up alot of really badly stained non-skid on the deck, including what was left over after I filled the soft spot.

As I mentioned before, I removed the cockpit locker covers and cover over the cabin stairwell to paint them separately. It also allowed me to perfect my painting technique before trying it out on the entire boat. For the locker covers, that also meant getting a chance to apply the KiwiGrip before putting it over the rest of the deck.

Painting the rest of the pieces took quite a bit of time. I put on two coats of primer, as I had with the rest of the deck, to better cover up the crazing and the patches. Then I put on one coat of Interlux Matterhorn White Polyurethane. After putting on that one coat, I had a conversation with Doug, the proprietor of Wormley Creek, who suggested the worst color to paint a deck was white. Off-white was OK. But white was too bright to have out there on the water. He said that he told another owner that, but he’d insisted that’s what he wanted. The next year, they were painting the deck again.

Well, the Matterhorn White in the ‘sample’ on the front of the can, and the sample online looked a bit grey, so I didn’t worry about it too much. But that first coat on the covers looked more like snow white. Hence, Matterhorn? So I took a couple of the quarts to my neighborhood TruValue store and asked if they could help me out. One person passed me off to another, who passed me off to a third. That third person was willing to take a chance, when I told him I’d accept whatever he gave me. I showed him the sample I wanted. It was a lighter version of the Kelly Green I was using for the boat stripe.  He said that most bases weren’t full cans, so the computer-generated sampling would overfill the can. But he decided instead to try putting just the green dye in to see what would happen. I should have stopped him, I know. But deer-in-the-headlights me just let him do it. It didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted, but it was OK.

So I went home and put on a coat of the new green matterhorn. Unfortunately, the TruValue guy didn’t keep it in the mixer long enough and the stuff was streaky the next day. So I mixed it myself with a drill and put on another coat. That wasn’t too bad.

Now there were two coats (well, three) of polyurethane on the pieces in the shed. They’d been sanded smooth after each coat and still needed touching up in a few spots. But I was ready to anxious to try the non-skid. And since more rain was expected, so there would be no painting on the boat, this was a good opportunity.

I taped around the edges, cutting the rounded corners. I opened the can of KiwiGrip. It looked like yogurt. The author of the article I’d read suggested applying it with a spatula, so that’s what I did. Then I proceeded to texturize it with the special brush they sent.

I put it on quite thick the first time. But when I tried using the texturizer on it, it looked awfully sharp. These are ‘seats’ after all, and I didn’t want sharp objects poking people in odd places. So I scraped off about half of what I’d put on and tried again. The results were quite good!

As the author of the article said, it will take a few years to see how well it holds up. But I am imprssed with how it looks. And it does cover up the sins of the original non-skid. I’ll add more pictures after I get it on the rest of the boat.

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