A less slick stage - permanently

jonares

Member
Howdy.... wondering if folks have suggestions... the quick background:
My stage is covered in tempered hardboard, and is in ok shape (new about 6 years ago) - painted once each year with a fresh coat of PPG Breakthrough Wrought Iron Satin (after having paint specialists help us find a paint that wouldn't peel up) - it works wonderfully. BUT... even with only one coat a year, it has been getting progressively more and more shiny and slippery. Love the ability to dust-mop it (and damp mop it) with ease, but it's getting SO slick these days. Suggestions?

No, coking the floor is not a good solution. Again, we need to clean it a lot. And there are classes in there every day. So a quick dust mop each day is all there is time for. (No time to coke and remove coke on 3000sf each day.)

How about a really rough pad on a floor buffer, before the next annual re-coat? Or, priming the current finish, and recoating with Breakthrough? (We love the look, and ease of cleaning, and the first few years it wasn't too slick.)

Thoughts?
- Jon
 
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Is it feasible to flip the hardboard? Depending on how you fastened it, if it's tempered on both sides of course, but that seems to me the quick and dirty solution to buy you some more time on it.
 
We regularly repaint the stage, and it doesn't get the chance to get slippery. We often paint it back to black with Flint's stage black when it's being used as a "cinema" but in any case the stage surface often gets completely repainted for each show (unless the set calls for carpeting) with Rosco scenic paints.

Stage black dries in a couple of hours - could be feasible for you?
 
Find a Janitorial supply house near you. Ask them about a mop on anti-skid coating used on Hospital and other industrial, clean, floors . I can't for the life of me remember the name of it. "Saf-T-Kleen" or or something like that. If it get's smudged or scratched you can spray or mop an area with an Ammonia compound, like Windex, then re-apply.
 
Is Slip NoMor the product you're thinking of? It's what I used for dance floors. You can add it to mop water every few moppings.


Otherwise it seems like a course sanding before the next coat of paint might be good. I suppose it's also possible that you have a build-up of oils. Maybe a super-thorough mopping with a good detergent / degreaser would help.
 
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Is it feasible to flip the hardboard? Depending on how you fastened it, if it's tempered on both sides of course, but that seems to me the quick and dirty solution to buy you some more time on it.
If only it were that easy. The opposing side is that rough side. Plus, the clowns that re-did our floor a number of years ago 1) didn't use the best grade of tempered hardboard, and 2) their mandated countersinking was a mess... blew right through in a lot of places, didn't leave the requisite gap in other places (so their solution was using a circular saw to cut kerfs into the seams) - so I feel if we try pulling up the flooring, it's going to shred like crazy.
 
We regularly repaint the stage, and it doesn't get the chance to get slippery. We often paint it back to black with Flint's stage black when it's being used as a "cinema" but in any case the stage surface often gets completely repainted for each show (unless the set calls for carpeting) with Rosco scenic paints.

Stage black dries in a couple of hours - could be feasible for you?
Does anyone know if Flint's Stage Black is carried by anyone in the US or North America? Does it have at least a little sheen, to aid in daily sweeping?
 
Is Slip NoMor the product you're thinking of? It's what I used for dance floors. You can add it to mop water every few moppings.
I've wondered about Slip NoMor - has anyone used it in a situation like ours? Is it "too" sticky to sweep? Does it attract gunk?

I recently recommended it to a dance company coming in in a few weeks that really thrashed our floor by putting WAY WAY WAY too much rosin on it - like an old ship yard with 200 years of bird poop on it. Talk about a sticky mess, and even though it was awful to mop up, we're basically back to a super-slick surface. (This time they're bringing in a Marley, thank goodness.)
 
I've wondered about Slip NoMor - has anyone used it in a situation like ours? Is it "too" sticky to sweep? Does it attract gunk?

I recently recommended it to a dance company coming in in a few weeks that really thrashed our floor by putting WAY WAY WAY too much rosin on it - like an old ship yard with 200 years of bird poop on it. Talk about a sticky mess, and even though it was awful to mop up, we're basically back to a super-slick surface. (This time they're bringing in a Marley, thank goodness.)
Used this for a production in my space where the clearcoat on the stage was far too slippery (stage has since been re cladded and painted) and still have a couple bottles kicking around. Works fairly well, we had to do at least twice daily sweep and mops and used it once every other day. It did the trick indeed.
 

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