BYYB Forums

The non-skid areas on my deck are going to be finished bright, with Epiphanes Rapid Coat.  I plan 6 coats of varnish.  I'd like to add non-skid beads to the varnish.  Interlux makes polyolefin beads called Intergrip.  The beads are designed for paint, but I would assume their use in varnish would be OK.  Unlike sand, the beads can be sanded away to refinish in the future.  What do you think?  Has anyone tried the product (I suspect PAR has!)

Dave

The beads will make your varnish (actually polyurethane) cloudy, milky and generally piss you off, because it's not clear.

The best approaches are salt or sugar (amazingly enough), which is literally washed out of the finish after the application coat dries.

The "Cliff's Notes" version is to apply several coats of varnish, so you have a good base. Next apply a coat of varnish then sprinkle ground salt or sugar into the wet finish. Let this cure good, then wash the surface (yes, with water), lightly scrubbing with a very soft brush to get all the granules out. The bumps left by the granules can be left as is (they can be overly sharp for some) or you can top coat with another coat of varnish, which softens the texture a bit.

Of course this also makes the surface look terrible to some people, when the light hits the texture and an objectionable reflection comes up.

Another approach is to use a long nap roller on the last few coats of varnish, as the coat is "gelling". This leaves a stippled finish, but not a particularly aggressive one. It may be enough for you, but both techniques should be tested on scrap so you get an idea of what's going to happen.

Sugar sprinkled over we varnish:

Waterway tape and sugar washed off:

Sweet ! 

Looking closely above, you'll see one of the ants that found this just the coolest thing they'd ever seen, by the topside plank butt block.

Another look at the texture. Note how fine it is and if you don't sprinkle it evenly or have very wet varnish, it'll leave "thin" spots.

I think that looks terrific. What a great idea.

I think it can look blotchy, without practice at evenly covering the wet varnish. The last photo shows just this type of problem.

ok so where's the ant?

The bottom photo of the first two posted has the little bastard in it. Divide the image into quarters and look at the lower left chunk. At the bottom of this piece of the image is the corner of the thwart, then just above this is a dark, diagonal line, which is the topside planking butt block, continuing upward is the little beast just crossing from the chine log to the planking. He died a slow merciless death, which I rather enjoyed watching.