Show Off Your Brute Force-Fabbed Gear!!

I'm in the middle of painting my bumpers right now. I actually took the time to hit them with an 80 grit sanding dish on my grinder to get a nice slightly roughed swirl surface and used scotchbrite into all the corners to make sure I got any loose bits cleaned up. Then I used simple green to clean away all of the dust and did an extra step to final clean with mineral spirits because I am anal and wanted to make sure it would be perfect.

After that I sprayed the self etching primer, then 2 coats of regular primer sanding smooth and cleaning with mineral spirits again between each coat. Yesterday I just laid down my first coat of Rustoleum bedliner, I'm going to do 1 more coat of that on the front and then spray with plain flat black. I wanted to do satin but couldn't find any. I might try to get some satin clear to go over the top.

Like I say I am very picky so I tried to make sure every coat was prepped as well as possible but I'm sure you could get a good finish without going through the week and a half process I have.

 

here I was hoping to paint my bumpers in a couple of days but may follow your lead and do it right from the beginning.

 

Does anyone have an email address for these guys? Their site sucks and most everything doesn't work. I really want one of their bedcages.

 

Yeah he was supposed to update his site but Billy is swamped with orders that we don't give him any time. He's a 1 man team running it all. Best way will be to contact him via banana phone.

 

Oh gross. The phone!

Okay I'll give it a shot. Hopefully I remember how.

 

I think he is out for some needed time away this weekend so don't be surprised if he doesn't get back to you till next week.

 

Time off! No excuse!

I messaged him on fb. Texted him. And left a message. Now I wait.

I'm surprised he's the only one that builds racks that bolt to thship bed floor instead of the rails.

 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I went completely overboard but I figure it's better to start with a good base and when I need to touch it up hopefully it will be minimal. Here are some pictures of the front bumper after the first coat on the face of it this morning.

 

Yeah I bought Satin black and Satin clear Rust-Oleum. Thought about doing that Duplicolor bedliner, but knowing me ill scratch them a lot or want to weld something to them later on, so quick touchups will be needed for me. I bought mineral spirits as well and I too will be sanding.

 

Yeah, I like the Rustoleum bed-liner mostly for the texture it gives it as well as how well it holds up. I used it on my sliders and skid plates too and it has held up well. After a couple years the sliders are starting to show a little rust in the high abrasion areas like right at the drivers door and on the front parts of the cross bars but it is only noticeable if you look really close. I'm hoping that adding the extra layers of paint over it will help with that as well as make it easier to clean, the dust really sticks to the bed-liner by itself.

I did drill a few and tap a few holes before I started painting too so that I can install my license plate, a light bar on top and a few clamps to help route the wiring for all the lights. Hopefully I don't decide I want to add any more holes or weld anything else down the road.

 

All of my stuff is painted with that bedliner paint. It works so good. And because of the texture it's super easy to touch up.

 

hahah not good ones my painting level is ughhh rookie at best. i got a little impatient and its a little runny because i was painting tubes. Metal plates should be a lot easier...

I just did the basic stuff.

1 rough grit
2 paint thinner
3 finer grit
4 self etching primer
5 bed liner black from costco or lowes.

 

So I tried painting flat black over the bed-liner this weekend and it didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. Turns out it is very hard to get the texture to match across that big of any area. Same thing I found with the primer is that a flat dry paint out of the spray can is very sensitive to how far away from the part you are spraying. The little variation I had caused it to dry spray in a few areas causing the texture to change and color to not match across the whole front.

So last night I sanded the flat and cleaned it up, then sprayed a new coat of bed-liner to even the texture back out. Now I am going to just try adding a layer of matte clear over the top to help with the cleaning. Hopefully it works out.

 

me waiting for my bumper.





lol jk i know billy is busy and doing great work, but man! cant wait to get it .

 

Got the bumper mounted today. Forget to get a socket for the spindle nut and can't find one local, ordered one and will get the swingout mounted tomorrow. I used a $20 rugged ridge flip license frame for a jeep but the mounting holes are different, had to drill holes for that.

 

And this is about 8 or 9 pm when I left his shop on SUNDAY! I can't say enough great things about Billy. Truly truly stand up guy. I am sure he would have rather been at home with family, but he let me come down on a Sunday and we ended up staying about 12 hours in his shop. Beer is on me come MOAB!

 

Coils on all 4s? Damn Billy needs a build thread

 

FTFY