Armed with Diggers Acetone to remove the wax, a Farmers Union Light Greek yoghurt container to squeeze a gob of Sikaflex FC into, an applicator cut from a Paul's vanilla ice-cream container to apply the Sikaflex FC, a brand spanking new roll of masking tape and a bag of Black & Gold kitty litter in a quest to add some texture to the grip, I headed to the big table under the trees at the bottom of our block. One hour later I had finally managed to get all the wax off the mat!!! Jeezus what a mission that was with the Paul's vanilla ice cream container applicator working very well as a scraper. It only took a minute or two to mask up the mat ready for the application of the Sikaflex FC and Black & Gold kitty litter. I whacked a gob of Sikaflex FC in to the Farmer Union yoghurt container and poured in a generous portion of Black & Gold kitty litter. I mixed it altogether with a nearby karri tree twig noticing that some of the Black & Gold kitty litter was of an unexpectedly large size. Although a little concerned, I thought I would persevere and applied it carefully, with the Paul's vanilla ice-cream container applicator, between a portion of the first two lengths of masking tape. Umm, I thought to myself "This is not really working as the granules of Black & Gold kitty litter just too large!". So I scraped off the mixture of Sikaflex FC and Black & Gold kitty litter with the incredibly versatile Paul's vanilla ice-cream container applicator and started again. Had I not succumbed to the seductive and beguiling thought of lying on a bed of kitty litter as I rode waves, it would have taken only 10 minutes to actually place the masking tape and apply the Sikaflex FC with the Paul's vanilla ice-cream container applicator/scraper. Piece of piss to do really! Today, now that it is set enough to touch, it looks like the Sikaflex FC is going to add a good measure of grip even without any texture added and I will be confirming that or otherwise today.
Well done Robin, we have to get our finger out here and gripp up 'Matmans and Pauls' mats!! you could have sprinkled some kilned dried sand, 50N grade which is a close to what bunnings sell as 'washed sand'...the only thing when you add any grit to a flexible material like sika flex etc,that you take away it flexible properties so dabbing the material with a damp sponge or similar will give you that 'orange peel'texture that we want for grip without ripping our skin off our forearms..lol..and i tell you the sika flex has less smell than the vulkem, my mat still stinks after a dozen surfs, but none the less, I'm happy with the job Mark did on my newey! Acetone is a great cleaner and stripper and in my trade we also call it MEK, very toxic to the user, but re-label it and call it acetone( nail polish remover) and its all good...Mark mentioned 'toulene' which is another quick flash solvent and the next grade down to MEK, funny thing is they use it as a sweetner and why I refused to ever drink 'pepsi max'...lol!!
ReplyDeleteActually there was plenty of grip as it was so I reckon the sponge trick would just finish it off nicely and I might amend the design to just gripping up the outside two bouts. It looks like I didn't get the wax off well enough so I will attack it with the acetone again and reapply it. Looking forward to getting my other two MT5s done too one of which is pristine new never been waxed so should grip up real nice.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin
ReplyDeleteYou could try just using a tooth brush to lift the surface of the sikaflex to give a texture the way we do in the uk using soudal fix all or vulcrum G man is the expert on this there is an articale on the UK mat site.
Cheers
Stu.
Thanks Stu. Is there ok I will have a peak there. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin
ReplyDeleteYou could try just using a tooth brush to lift the surface of the sikaflex to give a texture the way we do in the UK using soudal fix all and vulcrum, G man is the expert there is an articale on this subject on the UK mat site.
Cheers
Stu.
You know how us convicts are Stu? always trying to re-invent the wheel eh!
ReplyDelete