Painting the deck - masking non-skid vs. skid

[bhartley]

My Typhoon project came to a grinding halt due to the demands of income producing work and house guests (who weren't excited about sanding). The weather will be fair for the next three days and its time to get some real paint on this boat before the snow starts falling.

The Typhoon non-skid area is raised slightly from the deck, but the non-skid was strictly grit in the paint which is now long gone. Do I need to tape off the the non-skid areas before I do the skid? My original thought was that getting a little paint on the non-skid areas wasn't a problem and I would only tape when I got to the non-skid. Is there a reason to tape for the skid too?

Hope everyone else's project is making faster progress,

Bly

[Jason K]

I used the vague outline of the original nonskid to make for easy guides for taping. I painted the skid first and laid out the tape very carefully on the original border. That was a huge time saver as I did not have to worry about measuring constantly to be sure I had the right width for the skid.

In my case, the original nonskid was removed to the point that, once primed, the difference between the two sections was indistinguishable. That's why needed to tape off for the skid and the nonskid. If there is enough of a height differential between your skid and nonskid sections that it will be easy to tape along a defined border for just the nonskid application, then by all means do so.

It is not a big deal to get a few drips of skid paint in the nonskid section, as that will, of course, be heavily textured. It makes for painting the skid easy as there are always lots of places to put the tray.

When you paint the nonskid, though, be sure you know where you are going to set the tray well before you have to put it down.

What are you using for nonskid? (I highly recommend Interdeck)

[Tim]

The Typhoon non-skid area is raised slightly from the deck, but the non-skid was strictly grit in the paint which is now long gone. Do I need to tape off the the non-skid areas before I do the skid? My original thought was that getting a little paint on the non-skid areas wasn't a problem and I would only tape when I got to the non-skid. Is there a reason to tape for the skid too?

I would tape it off, though you don't have to be super careful with the process; I just think it pays off to isolate the other areas. If you get a lot of the smooth paint all over the nonskid areas, you will need to sand it slightly to rough it up--extra steps that can be sort of a pain. The overbrushed paint may also cause the nonskid to take on a slightly different appearance in those areas, as paint lays down differently depending on the substrate, porosity of the surface, and so forth.

That said, it's probably best, when you tape, to leave the tiniest amount of the nonskid showing, where the smooth paint will cover. This way, when you do your final taping later for the nonskid, you'll have an easier time getting a fine edge against the smooth paint, as you have that slight overage of the other paint to help avoid gaps.

I think taping makes a better job in the end, and is worth the time.

[bhartley]

I did tape off the non-skid areas before painting the first coat of skid. I'm very glad I did. In addition to the reasons already put foward, it really did speed up the painting process itself and a little extra practice making pretty corners and getting my lines nice and straight didn't hurt either.

I know its only one-part Brightside, but I am very encouraged by how the deck and cockpit look. The current high gloss is pretty unforgiving, but the areas I was really worried about are undistinguishable. Since the primer was sanded to a translucent finish, the different colors from all the repairs still showed through. Now its far more uniform -- with two coats to go!

Since the boat is much smaller than a Triton (only 18'), I did the roll/tip myself which worked just fine.

The weather report is clear for the next two days so I should be good to go.