James W wrote:

Despite only being a few years old, my Prospeed ladder was incredibly tatty on the flat step parts. Whereas the tubular sections are in really good condition, the powder coating used at manufacture doesn't seem to like the flat sections and has been peeling away slowly for over a year now. (I cannot say if this is common or just my ladder that is affected).

In an effort to buy a bit more time before I have to remove it and get it re-coated, I decided to clean up and cover the flaking sections with some grip tape.

I bought this tape off eBay, it was more than enough, seemed a good quality and promised good adhesive (which so far all seems true). For £1.95 I was impressed. I also got myself a new, decent craft knife.

First of all I used a thin flat scraper (not pictured) to pick off the remaining flakes back to where the paint remained 'good'. Like I said, this is intended as a stop gap solution so I didn't want to end up stripping all the paint off the ladder for now. Also the issue is only really affecting the upper surfaces of the steps at the moment. You can see how bad the surface rust is on the top and bottom steps.







I gave the edges a gentle rub with sandpaper and brushed off the surfaces with a dry paintbrush before cleaning with spirit.

I then painted rust inhibitor onto the exposed areas.

Whilst still wet:





And left it for a few hours to dry. The treated surface was actually quite impressive I thought once dry. It really seemed to seal it down.





The addition of the rust inhibitor had caused a couple more edges to flake up so I picked these off and made sure they were sanded flat again.

I started with the bottom step and cut the basic size shape with scissors, only removing the backing to stick it down once I was happy with the size.



I then started to carefully trim to the ladder cut-outs using the knife. I carved the bulk out and then trimmed carefully to allow enough overlap to fold around the edge. The backing of the grip tap is quite rubbery/tar-like (think shed roofing but a lot thinner) so molded very nicely around the edges of the cut-outs. I also found that with the blade retracted, the end of the knife made a perfect metal spatula for pushing and shaping the trimmed tape.



About thirty minutes later:



I then repeated the whole thing for the top, which was a lot more difficult due to the more irregular shape of the step, and having to work from a step ladder. The top step took nearly an hour.



Overall, I'm pretty impressed and for about £10 all in, including the tape, rush paint and the knife, I'll be happy to get another year or so out of it. Of course the extra grip will be handy too. It certainly looks neater.

Worth giving it a go if your Prospeed ladder is suffering from the same issue? One piece of advice if you have sensitive skin, you may want to wear gloves! The tape is obviously so abrasive that neither my iPhone or Pixel will recognise my fingerprints any longer I am having to use the PIN to unlock them!

Cheers

James

Hi James!

This was about a year ago now (OK - 10 months!)...


just wondered if you had any kind of follow up yet?