Hi Teal,

An interesting enquiry - I wonder where these rolls have been all these years! Treadmaster D was never a retail item, but was used quite extensively for bus and train floors, so in that context has excellent wear characteristics. We're not sure about the 385 - it might have been some sort of batch number. It was last made as Treadmaster D somewhere around the mid-eighties, so your sheets are probably more than 25 years old.

The charcoal side is not painted - no coating was ever applied. As manufactured, both sides would have been charcoal, which is just a fine layer of the pigmented rubber that smoothes over the surface during production. One side was finally sanded to give a good surface for bonding to the floor. The sanding exposed the cork granules, which changed the appearance.

After all these years it is very likely that some blooming will have occurred on one or both surfaces. This is powdery/waxy substances in the material that slowly migrate to the surface, and need to be removed from the back bonding surface, or the sheet may not stick properly. You can do this by scrubbing thoroughly with Treadmaster Cleaner made up in warm water. Rinse well and allow to dry thoroughly before bonding.

Be careful with the top charcoal surface - although it wears well in normal use on buses and trains, the rubber skin can be scratched fairly easily, so clean this side with Treadmaster Cleaner and a soft cloth or mop.

For routine cleaning, just use dilute Treadmaster Cleaner appplied with a soft mop or cloth, rinse and dry.

Normally the surface would not be painted. It could however be painted if required, with Treadmaster Treadcote, normally used to rejuvenate Treadmaster Original. The closest colour would be the standard Grey, although this may not be as dark as the charcoal.

For bonding you could use either Treadmaster Marine Contact Adhesive or Treadmaster Marine Epoxy Resin. My preference would be for the epoxy resin - it's more durable and gives a stronger bond - especially important here as the sheet has been rolled up for so long and may resist being laid out flat. It would certainly have to be well weighted down, especially at the edges, as a 6mm thickness with a long-term curl will probably try quite hard to roll itself up again!

The modern-day replacement for Treadmaster D is Treadmaster TM3. It is available in charcoal, but I wouldn't guarantee how close the colour match with Treadmaster D would be.

Hope this helps.

Brian