How Many Coats Does an Acrylic Court Need?

An acrylic sports surface is not a single coat of paint but a layered system built up one coat over another. Each coat has its own job: levelling the surface, giving it texture, carrying the colour and fixing the lines. How many coats go on depends on what the court is used for and on the condition of the base.

Talking about the number of coats on its own is misleading; what really decides the result is how flat the base is and whether water drains off it.

If the surface under the acrylic system holds water, it no longer matters how many coats went on. Wherever water stands you get colour variation, blistering and early wear.

That is why the falls are checked before application, and any ponding is taken out with a filler coat where necessary. New concrete or asphalt also has to have cured long enough.

On a tennis court it is how fast the ball comes off the surface that matters; in basketball it is foot slip, and in volleyball how comfortably players can pivot. The amount of sand in the mix is set accordingly — the same colour can mean a different texture.