Kiwi Grip

I am finally really getting close to finishing off the boat, just a few things more and I will focus on setting up the mast (which is done and beautiful !) and getting the sails cut.

So one of the last finishing touches was applying the anti skid paint and i choose to use Kiwi Grip because of all the good things I heard about.

I bought a can of white, which was the only color available in Turkey, and custom colored it to a light grey using a small amount of water based pigment as recommended by the Kiwi manufacturer. 5 minutes on the shaker at the paint shop and my custom grey was ready.

Then I took my time to tape all areas I wanted to keep in the original Perfection White. That is a lot of masking tape !

But the real work was to round off ALL corners. I mean all of them, except the ones I forgot, were rounded off using a large washer as a guide and my cutter.

It was an enjoyable task to do and kept my mind busy for a while, a bit like assembling a puzzle.

Kiwi application was very easy and straight forward. I just use one of the plastic squeegees I had left over from all the epoxy work, threw it down in patches were I needed it, spreaded it all around to achieve a uniform thickness, than gave it its texture using the special roll. More than the force applied to the roll, I found out that it is mostly the amount of gooey you lay down that will change the final texture.

On my boat, I went for a smoother texture on deck sides, where my butt will be, and for a more aggressive texture on the cockpit floor.

One issue I faced, which is worth mentioning, is that in the areas I took too long to remove the tape after applying KG, the tape itself ended up melting down. I mean it started to disintegrate under the Kiwi chemicals, become very soft, and mushy. And I am talking good quality blue tape !

İ removed about 90% of all the tape while the Kiwi was still fresh, but on one of the benson where the tape had been left for about 20 mns, İ only managed to peel off the top of the tape yet the glue and part of the tape material stayed on the benson.

A second of panic (!!!!!) just to think about the possibility of screwing the whole thing up.....and then İ decided to leave it as it was and remove the blue tape left over the following day,after the bordering Kiwi had hardened.

Next day, with a little acetone and finger nails scratching, I removed the blue tape that had been left behind. Thanks God my anti skid paint job was safe. And it looked really sharp !

All that time patiently taping the boat paid off. I really dig the round corners and the white and grey color scheme. Check it out