Refinishing hard tonneau

I was shopping around for a used hard tonneau for my 01 recently. Of course the odds on finding one the same color as your truck are pretty small. I found a good deal on a Leer but it was dark green so I did some searching. It seems some folks here had used Rustoleum spray on truck bed liner to refinish metal parts ($7.49 a can at Walmart). I've actually never been a fan of the body color tonneau look so I figured I'd give it a shot. Took some 400 grit sandpaper to the paint finish to rough it up, a quick solvent wipe down and then two quick coats. As you'd expect with a bed liner product it goes on pretty rough. It's also kind of hard to get a perfectly uniform looking finish. After it dried I discovered a lot of the irregularity could be evened out with a light sanding. It made the finish smoother and a lot more uniform. Not perfect but very acceptable. Here's a shot.

 

looks good from there. do you have any close up shots of the texture you achieved?

 

....nice home

 

When you first spray it's very rough and depending on how much you put on, how wet, etc, it can have some degree of difference in texture. When you sand it most of the rough stuff comes off as a black dust leaving a relatively smooth matte black finish. It's not paint smooth but it's nice and level. If you're looking at it from dead on it just looks flat black. If you have a low angle light reflection you see some variation in texture. I can probably get it better with more sanding but it's good enough for me now. I'll try to get a closer picture later.

 

i get ya! i like the idea. i love bed liner! any idea how much weight you added to it with the liner coating?

 

Probably a few ounces.