Non-Skid Surface

It's a very course texture mixed into the paint. It's so course it will wear down a pair of soft sole boots in no time flat. It happened to me. In 1/350 or 1/700 scale anything I can think of would be over scaled. Just paint deck the proper color. In 1/72 (or larger) scale you could spray adheasive then sprinkle talcum powder on the deck, then brush off excess, then paint normally.

When searching for the right colors for a modern flight deck, think "multi-colors."

The no-skid surface is laid by hand on the deck and is rarely put on the entire deck at one time, so patches of the deck will vary from a good "scale" black to almost a medium gray depending on how long the section has been exposed to weather. Too many carrier models show the deck as one color and that is very rare. Often the "patches" are squared off, not random looking at all. The various stripes can be repainted over no-skid was applied earlier and has weathered. There will be fresh paint put over the faded surface. The paint will look new, the no skid won't.

Take a look through the Navy's photo gallery at www.news.navy.mil you'll see what I mean.

Mike

On SSNs and SSBNs the texture is mixed into the paint which is very thick.. I found that painting the non skid area in a flatter color than the rest of the hull looks good. On 1/350 scale you still won't Feel it... Much better if just painted on..
Hopr this helps.

As a plankowner on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, I was onboard when the initial non skid was applied. As your other replies state, it is some really thick stuff. It is applied ot the ships (or at least was in 1989) with large rollers. I had friends that would play basketball on the hangar deck and get pretty torn up in the process. To answer your question though, fresh nonskid is very dark grey (about FS 36081 or so). The hangar bay does not fade over time; however, the flight deck certainly does. As far as using different colors, the main difference is down the landing strip and along the catapults. Even when I was on the U.S.S. Eisenhower coming out of the shipyard (after an overhaul) the decks were chipped down to bare metal and then covered with new nonskid. I hope this helps.
Bull