Spectrum Colour has Catalina colours, believe they are in Seattle? Somewhere in the NW. But you also might get it from Catalina parts since your boat is fairly late model.

[url]http://www.spectrumcolor.com/[/url]

Not cheap though most of the cost for me was shipping, they refuse to ship other than UPS and those guys are just punishing for border crossing.

howdy,
Mas epoxy has the reverse mold patterns, they are not cheap, seems like they run about 100 buck a square foot. i believe the james town distributors has then as well. the place that makes then is in Fort Worth but they only sell directly to retailers. hope that helps

Why not make your own, it will assure a perfect match.

This can be done by simply applying mold release to a good portion of your anti-skid, mask off a square and pour some resin on it let it cure and peel it up and you have your mold. Gel coat works well for this as is stays a bit more pliable, it also helps to mark lines on the back of the mold before peeling it up to orient the grid detail.

Making your own mold like this also warms you up for your next step the actual repair. It is a great time to work on your color match of the gel coat.

I just completed my first stab at gel coat repair on my hull and though I thought my match was spot on I found after sanding and polishing out the repair I was slightly off on the match. Get lots of opinions, I did as some people have a better eye for color than others, make sure you are happy with the match before adding the catalyst, it does not change the color. I learned that even your own eyes will differ somewhat from one eye to the other in regard to color recognition. My hull is grey, I felt I could not go wrong using white and black pigment, I got the grey tint spot on but, it was a bit too bright, I stopped about a dozen people on the dock and solicited opinions, the conclusion was that I needed brown, it purchased some brown and it was the secret ingedient, the final repair indicates I needed just a touch more black.

Be aware, West Marine sells a gel coat repair kit for about seventy bucks. It includes all the primary colors and enough gel coat to complete about a four inch square repair. I purchased pint of Gel coat for $45 and the pigment tubes are 6.95 each, the gel coat pint was white and I purchased black, yellow and brown tint. This cost $66 but gave me about ten times more gel coat than the WM repair kit.

Jamestown Distributors sells the MAS flex mold for nonskid patterns for $ 50. Here's the link:

[url]http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=5371...

I'm lookng at this project down the road, so I'll be interested to hear how it goes.

Nelson Lee

Using a pattern from Gibco I matched the non-skid on my 1987 Catalina 36 to Gibco's GFCW317 pattern. When laid on the deck it slipped right in, perfect fit.

However, the other patterns 301, 306 and 327 were wrong when trying to fit the pattern in the cockpit seats and top of the surrounding coamings. It is a fine diamond pattern.

I did a pencil rub on a piece of paper overlaying the pattern. The diamonds are elongated and are 8 x 14 per square inch. Poured over the pictures on the jamestown and Gibco web sites but can't seem to match to anything.

Anyone had any success finding the right pattern?

The area I have to fix is a lot larger than making a mold using gelcoat. If anyone knows a way to make a flexible mold using some kind of pourable vinyl or latex that might work. Any help appreciated.

Don't know much about the overall job you're doing but I do know that the first time I need to match the nonskid on my decks, I am going to use it as an excuse to just Kiwigrip the whole damn thing.

You can get various rubbers/silicones made for that purpose, I got one from a guy in England on eBay. You just apply a release agent (lots of it), build a little dam around the area you want to take the mold off, mix the stuff up and pour it in. When it sets up it should just pull off and Bob's yer uncle you got a mold!

Do a google search for TAP Plastics.

They have online lessons on silicone and rubber mold making online ...FREE

They are located in Northern California, the info in their online classes should get you started, if you can't find the products they are using I could pick them up and ship to you... They are good people.

Just checked: its: TAPPLASTICS.com
Here's the link to the mold making supplies you'll need: [url]http://www.tapplastics.com/product/mold_making_materials/mold_making_sup...

On the right side of that page there is a heading: TAP PLASTICS TV, go down a bit and find the link to view all instructional videos...

thanks for the suggestions!

I have been in direct contact with the nice folks at Gibco who coincidentally are less than 10 miles from my house. That still doesn't mean they sell retail but they were very helpful trying to match my pattern. I sent close up photos of my '87 C36 cockpit seats and floor patterns. Not one of their patterns. They said Catalina has used their 327 pattern but the small 8x14 diamond pattern in the '87 isn't one of theirs. 317 is the roving pattern for the non-skid on deck (that is a pattern originally off Boston Whaler). They are going to send me a 327N (negative) pattern to see if it fits anything on the boat but the photos don't match up.

So I'm looking for a local source of mold casting material. I've got one crack that is about 10 inches long so I am going to spring for a flexible mold material. My guess is that every time Catalina altered or made a new plug the pattern was subject to change.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

I purchased some Tin-Sil mold making material from a local mold supplier. It is a tin cured silicone that is easy to work with. My first molds were too thin and were not very good for squeezing the air out of the gelcoat since applying too much pressure distorted the mold. I recast the molds making them about 1/2" thick and they work much better now although still a little bit of distortion. The silicone mold will seal the air out and you can skip adding wax or PVA. The mold will last longer with a PVA coating so I am continuing to precoat it. The mold has a pretty strong styrene odor after you pull it off the patch so I suspect that coating it with PVA is a good idea to help the mold last longer.

I got about 3 square feet of casting for less than $50. The mold company also sold PVA by the quart for less than an 8 oz. bottle will cost you at West. I've found the PVA to be easy to use in a Preval sprayer.

Gibco could not match the cockpit seating pattern so casting my own was the only choice.

All in all I am pretty pleased with the way this worked out. I managed to mold in a new non skid pattern in an 18" x 5" area with a pretty good transition between the new and old.

There is a very good tutorial on non- skid repair along with making a reusable non-skid mold on YouTube from "Boat Works Today". He also has many other tutorials for boat projects. Search for "There's a hole in my boat" parts one and two.