If you open this month's Practical Sailor (page 5), you will find that they updated their recommendations for non-skid. In 2012, one of the highest rated products was Durabak, really a truck-bed liner but it tested well as a non-skid. Now it is downgraded to FAIR, their second-lowest grade. The reason is that, while nice when freshly applied, Durabak is a complete failure on the long term! It may be a great product for a pickup truck but, as PS now found out, on boat decks if peels off and leaves a mess after two years or so.
This is exactly what is happening to my deck! The Durabak layer is internally decomposing. It is disintegrating with parts of it peeling off in small flakes which are getting everywhere, leaving behind a grayish component that looks like flat paint being left behind on the deck. This "paint" is essentially smooth so there is zero non-skid any more on increasingly large areas of my deck. Not only is this cosmetically a catastrophe (the deck looks like sh*t, and the flakes are carried everywhere, including into the cabin) but it is becoming a safety hazard.
It is nice that PS is now warning potential customers about this but it is too late for me, I am (literally) stuck with the stuff on my deck.
So, my question: How can I get rid of the stuff? The paint-like stuff clings tenaciously to the underlying gel coat. The only thing I can think of is to sand it off with very coarse sand paper (80 grit? 50 grit?) and a band sander or a grinder. There are three concerns I have.
1) Of course, I worry about the damage this will do to the underlying gel coat (which was in good shape before I foolishly applied Durabak).
2) I also worry that there is enough of the rubbery stuff left (which is the part the makes it non-skid) to clog the sand paper constantly which will make this very tedious work
3) And then there is the isssue of the borders. There are many linear feet in a deck, many with a fine radius. How do I precisely sand to this line, without damaging the gelcoat outside the non-skid area?
Oh, and of course the obvious place to ask for help would be the seller (durabakcompany.com). Unfortunatelly, they say they have no idea what to advise. I would have thought that there might be a chemical way to dissolve the remnants, hopefully even without damaging gel coat. But if there is, DurabakCompany is not saying.
In the process of finding out what chances of redress I might have, I found out that the company is not listed with the BBB. Yes, I know, I should have done all this research before I bought and applied this stuff but I had relied on the PS test. Big, big mistake.
Any advice?
Thank you!
This is exactly what is happening to my deck! The Durabak layer is internally decomposing. It is disintegrating with parts of it peeling off in small flakes which are getting everywhere, leaving behind a grayish component that looks like flat paint being left behind on the deck. This "paint" is essentially smooth so there is zero non-skid any more on increasingly large areas of my deck. Not only is this cosmetically a catastrophe (the deck looks like sh*t, and the flakes are carried everywhere, including into the cabin) but it is becoming a safety hazard.
It is nice that PS is now warning potential customers about this but it is too late for me, I am (literally) stuck with the stuff on my deck.
So, my question: How can I get rid of the stuff? The paint-like stuff clings tenaciously to the underlying gel coat. The only thing I can think of is to sand it off with very coarse sand paper (80 grit? 50 grit?) and a band sander or a grinder. There are three concerns I have.
1) Of course, I worry about the damage this will do to the underlying gel coat (which was in good shape before I foolishly applied Durabak).
2) I also worry that there is enough of the rubbery stuff left (which is the part the makes it non-skid) to clog the sand paper constantly which will make this very tedious work
3) And then there is the isssue of the borders. There are many linear feet in a deck, many with a fine radius. How do I precisely sand to this line, without damaging the gelcoat outside the non-skid area?
Oh, and of course the obvious place to ask for help would be the seller (durabakcompany.com). Unfortunatelly, they say they have no idea what to advise. I would have thought that there might be a chemical way to dissolve the remnants, hopefully even without damaging gel coat. But if there is, DurabakCompany is not saying.
In the process of finding out what chances of redress I might have, I found out that the company is not listed with the BBB. Yes, I know, I should have done all this research before I bought and applied this stuff but I had relied on the PS test. Big, big mistake.
Any advice?
Thank you!