Jul 19 2006
The Martinson-Nicholls Company for years has been a consultant and material supplier in the area of pressure sensitive, anti slip tapes. Their expertise was again tested solving a problem for the U.S. Coast Guard.
The U.S. Coast Guard had a problem with most of their ship decks becoming extremely slippery when they were out to sea. Although the decks were covered with an anti-slip epoxy, this coating would often crack into sections due to the heavy bouncing of the ship while at sea. Since epoxies have no memory and do not give, they tend to crack into dangerous pieces.
The challenge for Martinson-Nicholls was to come up with a system that not only created a great anti slip surface, but also had memory so that no cracking occurred. The task was accomplished by working with the 3M Company to develop an aggressive mineral imbedded, pressure sensitive tape that could be custom-designed into specific shapes and sizes to fit any ship in the Coast Guard fleet. To make sure initial installations were correct, Martinson-Nicholls president Dan Ruminski traveled to various ports throughout the country to supervise. Once this was done, a computer-generated drawing was produced for each size ship creating a kit of custom-cut templates. The average kit contains some 80 pieces of anti-slip material, with some as large as 2' X 7'. Each kit is shipped with a numbered drawing corresponding to each numbered piece of material, making installation mistake-proof.
After several years of testing, the U.S. Coast Guard is now adapting Martinson-Nicholls' anti-slip technology to most ships within their fleet. Martinson-Nicholls took great pride in resolving this issue for our military. Such technology has application for infinite possibilities for any surface, large or small, requiring a slip-resistant surface.
Posted 19th July 2006