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Slippery wood


dave21478
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No, that's not a euphemism.

I built a wooden bridge and a few other wooden structures for someone a couple of years ago. The problem is that in a garden and especially after a couple of years of falling leaves and general outside grime, they are now lethally slippery when wet.

The bridge is made from massive beams of douglas fir. I am not sure what he treated it with - I didnt do that part.

The other structures are also douglas fir planks, treated with linseed oil (not my idea).

Obviously I can degrease it, but then what? I see there are various non-slip floor coatings available, usually a resin with sand or similar mixed in to provide a rougher surface....would that sort of thing work on wood?

Any other ideas?
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Thats what puts me off the resin - the extremes of temperature mean there must be a fair bit of movement in the wood due to temperature variations. Also, the flexing as its loaded. Its primarily a foot bridge, but has to pass a mid sized tractor when mowing in the summer. It doesnt visibly deform, but there must be some degree of flex, I would imagine.

I would reckon that movement would crack off a resin pretty quickly - I have no idea about paint and whether it would be suitable as an alternative.

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Maybe insert something between the beams, something metallic with a T section the top part being perhaps serrated like what you get on industrial walkways, if you have the space and do some lateral thinking you might think up something cheap and banal that will do the job or see something somewhere and shout Eureka!

You could screw down chequer plate tracks but that is just as lethal when wet and polished, stainless steel expanded metal like Niergalto would do the trick or if buying from the UK something from the Expamet range.

Bridge looks superb and the supporting structure is all but invisible in the photo, what did you use and how did you form it?

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Thanks.

Underneath is a pair of steel I-beams with some smaller cross-rails to keep them parallel.

I drew the curve out on the workshop floor, then cut notches in the underside of the beams, bent and re-welded them, so its not an actual curve but a series of straight sections but you cant really see that once it was finished.

I then fitted some thinner wood into the hollow of the beams so the steel is all but hidden. Each end is set into poured concrete footings.

Hardest part was lifting the framework out over the water - Stupidly I had returned the excavator to the hire place by then so had nothing to lift it with. In the end it took six strong people, with two chest-deep in the drink to pass the end of the frame across.

I got a sawmill to cut the wood to size and its bolted down with long coach-bolts.

He didnt want a hand-rail or anything fussy, so this seemed like the best solution. I just need to solve the slipping problem now. I am slightly unwilling to fit any kind of metalwork to the surface though.

I thought about maybe setting the circular saw to a shallow cut and putting a few grooves along each length, but I reckon they would just get clogged up quite quickly. There are a lot of trees round about so while its ok in summer, there are a huge amount of fallen leaves in winter which quickly get trodden in.
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Re the grooving, well that sounds like the decking planks I used on my steel framed trap doors to my cellar and they are lethally slippy whenever wet.

I bought a job lot of resin and hardener from an EBay seller, each litre came with a bag of silica sand and it was intended for your use, I told the guy to keep the sand to keep the postage weight down, I used the resin on my staircase but I'm not sure it would hold outside, you would have to wait till the wood is dry as a bone after pressure washing.

At the time I was doing lots of anorakking on Google about resins and read loads of stuff where "good old boys" in the states were varnishing their wooden pick up beds, a cartain type of resin and application seemed to be resistant and last for years of very sunny exposure.

A lot of waffle but find the right resin and application method (although you arent looking for a car show finish), it will definitely work with an abrasive mixed in with it.

Sure some will come off but the majority would stay and you could redo the worn bits.

I think getting it clean and dry will be your problem.

In the short term you could glue down some 10 year roofing felt, maybe add some clous calotins as well or try some of the French bardage bitumeux tiles, both are very grippy. It would work for foot traffic especially if you laid it on hot bitumen, vehicles would have to take car, no burn-outs!

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I bought a load of this stuff  http://www.watco.co.uk/watco-safety-grip.html and it is still working after about 4 years.  It is on sleepers that are used as external steps and is very good.

I should mention that I got it half price and so maybe waiting for a promotion might be a good idea.  They have a French site but that was very pricey.

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  • 2 months later...
An old boaters trick is to sprinkle coarse epson salts, salt or sugar on the painted surface, then give a couple of coat on top. A light sanding to expose the surface of the crystals used allows water to wash them out, leaving craters that give grip to surface. Should work with varnish (as long as its not water based!!).

Another method is to fix coarse netting on the surfaces, bedded in with epoxy, more fiddly.
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  • 2 weeks later...
We have a wooden ramp leading into our chicken house and Eddie nailed a narrow strip of wood above each joint of the wood. It works ok, but you still need to take care when it's covered in mud (as at the moment.)

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