Spider cracks in nonskid repair??

[gdombroski]

The moulded nonskid area on my engine compartment cover and the two beside it are covered with spider cracks. As there are many and area is about 28 sq ft. smooth sanding or gouging is not practical and I don't want to loose the non skid aspect. Did search and really can't find good answer for this repair. As anyone had same issue and found product that could be applied that would seal these? The other areas not nonskid are not spidered so I don't think it's structural.

 

[fishingdan]

Re: Spider cracks in nonskid repair??

Can you post a picture?

I had a similar (maybe) issue on a fish box cover that is in the sole of my boat. The fish box is about 6' x 2' and has a cover that you walk. The cover has a non-skid finish too. The spider cracks in my case were due to the core material rotting. The cover had a balsa core. Once I replaced the balsa core with ply and glassed it in, I then worked on the top side. Spider cracks are fixed one by one. While you can fix it in a non-skid area, it would have taken too long to deal with the number of them in my case. I pulled out a grinder, put a flapping type sanding wheel on it and sanded the non-skid off. Once I had that off, I then tackled the spider cracks. They need to be ground down to the bottom of the crack and then built back up. I ended up grinding all of the gel coat off down to the glass. I then built it back up with 6oz fiberglass with epoxy. Then faired it and reapplied a non-skid.