Cheap and effective Non Skid Paint or Varnish for Boats using household items

Non skid paint or varnish using what you may already have in the cupboard

One of the new launchings of the Goat Island Skiff had a problem with a slippery floor. – no need to buy non skid paint or tape.

Here is my favourite suggestion.

Nice way to deal with it is the same way we did the PDRacers. I couldnt find he pics on the building thread.

Non Skid Paint Method

Varnish or paint the cockpit floor normally.

Then mask off the area to be non skid. Measure and plan it carefully so it looks nice. Doing the whole bottom looks terrible. A glossy margin around the edges and up the middle of the non skid paint or varnish area looks best

Better to have a 50mm margin round the front and edges and keep it about a foot clear at the back. Also leave a 70mm wide area up the middle.

Probably need two small patches either side of the centrecase.

Mask off. Corners need to be rounded off – so put some tape across the corners, use a tin and a stanley knife (carpet knife) to cut the internal corners round.

Sand ready to varnish … pay attention close to the tape as it is easy to leave shiny spots by accident. Clean up dust.

Put a normal thick coat of varnish down on the areas (if there’s a lot to do you may need to do an area at a time. Then .. the magic.

Sprinkle some coarse grain sugar or salt or epsom salts over the wet varnish. Using a sifter gives an even distribution. Just so there is an even distribution of grains. Just so it starts looking like the grade of nonskid wanted.

Don’t push them into the varnish manually, just let them sit. When done remove the masking tape carefully.

Next day put the boat on its side and rinse away the grains. Clear non skid paint or varnish. Just use what you have.

(I didn’t do a good job of rinsing with the first boat I did this to many years ago … and ended up with an ant invasion .. so be warned!)

The full text and discussion is here plus some tricks about stencilling and putting sail numbers or boat names in the non skid.

Getting around problems

the sugar coating over wet varnish went badly wrong for me. Don’t know why (obviously I guess) so it might be worth checking with others and MIK exactly what works and what does not work.

I varnished the floor then poured sugar on top and left it. When I washed the sugar off, over 50% of the non-slip was uncoated. Other bits semi coated and just some bits were ok. Quite a mess.

Perhaps more varnish?

In the past I have used the correct non slip additive (like a very fine grey sand) without a problem.

Howdy.

Anything can go badly wrong of course, but I haven’t had it happen with this one – the worst I have had was ants in the boat the first time I ever did it! Since then flawless non skid paint finishes.

If varnish is drying before you are ready – the only solution is to be organised and avoid doing it in direct sunlight.  Also varnishes like two pot with fast evaporating thinners will require extra care and speed or thickness.  The Varnish job doesn’t need to be perfect because the sugar will usually stop the worst brush strokes or little runs from appearing.

There are two other risky areas that I can think of.

One potential problem is if the sugar is completely covered by the varnish – it is best if it sits on the surface – then it will be as nasty and abrasive as sand. The main things there are to make sure the varnish is not too thick – slightly thicker than a normal coat and also to make sure the sugar has a big enough grain to stick up out of the varnish. If you use a super fine caster sugar it will not work – but a coarser grain raw sugar will have a grain size much larger than the varnish thickness. Don’t handle the sugar once it is sprinkled – don’t mix with the varnish – just sit on top.

A risk is that the varnish is not dry enough or still a bit soft after the sugar is rinsed off. Leave it a bit longer than the normal drying time for the varnish again after the varnish is washed off.

When it is washed use lots of water and position the boat so the water will positively run away. Another risk while it is soft is playing with it by scrubbing or scratching at it – the non skid paint or varnish really needs the same drying period as fresh varnish because removing the sugar will expose some almost undried varnish.

Any method can go badly wrong in one instance after years of complete reliability, but it is a pretty reliable method used a lot here.