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$1250 for line-x

Line-X is a very good product but like any bedliner prep & application is extremely important. Look how they prep the job and check jobs they have done. Each shop is independently owned and sets their own price so it may vary greatly from shop to shop. So check every shop you can for price and quality of work.;)
 
Of course you can't do Line-X yourself and I wish I could reccommend a product as I have been looking for quite some time. I can say Herculiner seems to get lots of bad reports but that could be due to DIY error and/or it seems to be the most readily available:rolleyes: Certainly check out the brands suggested.
 
Clear up the Bedliner Bull.

I have some info/insight on the bedliner biz. Rhino Linings, Line x and all the other spray- on liners are good products. The materials themselves are different (I will get into that) but they will all work well if done right. I have heard people say " Line x peels" or " Rhino Linings looks like cottage cheese". That is the fault of the applicator. Line x and Rhino Linings will not peel if the truck is preped right. The cottage cheese is because they sprayed it in a few thick layers, instead of many thin layers.
The difference between the 2 products varies. Line x has one type of product, it is sprayed on about 1/8"(average). It is a hard, almost plastic like compound. Because it is hard, it is not as slip resistant.
Rhino Linings has 3 products, the first is Tuff Grip. This is the most common Rhino Liner found in pick-ups. It is a softer compound, so it has a better grip on cargo than the harder stuff. It is sprayed on 1/4" thick(average).
Hardline is Rhino's second product. This has the properties of Line-x. It is less slip resistant than Tuff Grip, but it is harder. It is sprayed on at 1/8" thick. Hardline is used alot in mobile applications, like garage floors, and wharehouse floors.
The third is a totally different product, Solormax. It is the most expensive of Rhino's 3 products for one reason, color stability. With Line x, and Rhino's Tuff Grip and Hardline the color will fade anywhere from 1-5 yrs. A topcoat can be applied, but can also be scratched. Solormax will retain the color as long as automotive paint. It does not fade. It is not as hard as Hardline, but harder than Tuff Grip.
Now lets get into the method of spraying. You have 2 types of systems, HP(high pressure) and LP (low pressure). HP advantages are as follows:
The produst sets up quicker, so less chance of drips.
It is easier/faster to spray a truck.
The gun is trigger activated.
HP disadvantges:
Because of the heat, humidity is a big factor.
Limited to one size texture.
LP advantages:
Better for humidity.
ability to pour product, molds and such.
Infinate texture options, from small to huge droplets.
easier for mobile apps.
LP disadvantages:
Once gun is on, must purge if turning off.
You have to now how to spray a truck, not a grab and spray system.

Line x uses HP. Rhino Uses both HP and LP.

I hope this will help clear up rumors about different products. They have a product for every app. Just choose the right one for your app, and get it done by an expirienced shop. Ask to see samples of work.
 
After Ours said:
I have some info/insight on the bedliner biz. Rhino Linings, Line x and all the other spray- on liners are good products. The materials themselves are different (I will get into that) but they will all work well if done right. I have heard people say " Line x peels" or " Rhino Linings looks like cottage cheese". That is the fault of the applicator. Line x and Rhino Linings will not peel if the truck is preped right. The cottage cheese is because they sprayed it in a few thick layers, instead of many thin layers.
The difference between the 2 products varies. Line x has one type of product, it is sprayed on about 1/8"(average). It is a hard, almost plastic like compound. Because it is hard, it is not as slip resistant.
Rhino Linings has 3 products, the first is Tuff Grip. This is the most common Rhino Liner found in pick-ups. It is a softer compound, so it has a better grip on cargo than the harder stuff. It is sprayed on 1/4" thick(average).
Hardline is Rhino's second product. This has the properties of Line-x. It is less slip resistant than Tuff Grip, but it is harder. It is sprayed on at 1/8" thick. Hardline is used alot in mobile applications, like garage floors, and wharehouse floors.
The third is a totally different product, Solormax. It is the most expensive of Rhino's 3 products for one reason, color stability. With Line x, and Rhino's Tuff Grip and Hardline the color will fade anywhere from 1-5 yrs. A topcoat can be applied, but can also be scratched. Solormax will retain the color as long as automotive paint. It does not fade. It is not as hard as Hardline, but harder than Tuff Grip.
Now lets get into the method of spraying. You have 2 types of systems, HP(high pressure) and LP (low pressure). HP advantages are as follows:
The produst sets up quicker, so less chance of drips.
It is easier/faster to spray a truck.
The gun is trigger activated.
HP disadvantges:
Because of the heat, humidity is a big factor.
Limited to one size texture.
LP advantages:
Better for humidity.
ability to pour product, molds and such.
Infinate texture options, from small to huge droplets.
easier for mobile apps.
LP disadvantages:
Once gun is on, must purge if turning off.
You have to now how to spray a truck, not a grab and spray system.

Line x uses HP. Rhino Uses both HP and LP.

I hope this will help clear up rumors about different products. They have a product for every app. Just choose the right one for your app, and get it done by an expirienced shop. Ask to see samples of work.

I haven't seen this breakdown and comparison of the two brands before...Thanks for that. It's really helpful :laugh:

Do you happen to know how the DIY-brands like Herculiner and Durabak compare in terms of materials and finished products when using different methods (HP vs. LP spray, roll-in, brush on)???

I'm just wondering what the qualities of the actual products are (color fade resistance, durability, slip resistance, etc...) if all other things were equal (prep work, equipment and technique used during application).

If that's not clear, I'll put it this way... Say the same experienced installer at a Line-X dealer decided to load up the gun with Rhino...then Herculiner...then Durabak. What would the differences be?
 
never used them myself. was told Herculiner and Durabak will peel after a short time. for all i know they didnt do it right? not sure. i would like to do one of the spray ones. sure is a lot of cash tho.
 
2186576_48_full.jpg

That's the Herculiner I have on my Tracker. I suck at painting and I figured the Herculiner was cheaper. It's been on there a year this weekend and is holding up nice, but has faded some. PREP PREP PREP! Read the instructions and OBEY THEM!
A friend of mine Herculined the bed of his Ranger...and will tell you to this day that Herculiner sucks. However his prep work sucked. I spent a day sanding, cleaning, sanding, cleaning, preping, Xylol'ing, sanding, cleaning, washing, etc etc etc the lower half of my Tracker. He basically sanded it, washed it, and rolled on one coat. Yeah, it scratched up pretty easily...but then it didn't have anything to stick to and he didn't put it on thick enough.
I also used the Herculiner UV-topcoat. It helps to stabilize the stuff and keep it from fading/degrading. Might be hogwash but I figured for $25 extra and basically a third coat... The only problem was I couldn't find the proper Herculiner rollers to use and the "sorta similar" ones I found didn't work as well. So the UV protectant didn't get into all the nooks and crannies. However I'm happy with it and the Tracker isn't rusting out on me any time soon. Also scares people away from it.:D

I've also had two trucks lined over the bedrails with Rhino Liner...the softer stuff mentioned in a post above. My '99 Ram 1500 shortbed and my '96 Ranger shortbed both got Rhino Liner and I loved it. It held up well and stuff STUCK to it like nothing else. I once did my own version of that Rhino Liner ad and left my tool box sitting half in the bed of the Ranger with the tail gate down...and after several curves, three right hand corners, and one left hand corner over 5 miles it was still there right where I left it. I love the stuff! Nice and thick too.
Recently got a quote from the local place that's done business with me and the guy wants $550 to do Big Ugly's 8' bed over the rail. Prices have gone up but it's a bigger bed and the guy does good work. Hopefully next spring/summer it'll get sprayed.

Line-X...never used it myself. Had friends who used it and liked it.

As mentioned above talk to the dealers/appliers and get a feel for them. A few years back I called around Grand Rapids, MI to get the bedliner put on my Ram...and was spectacularly unimpressed with the answers of the Line-X guys. I also asked about doing the rockers and lower body of the truck...and they "wouldn't guarantee their work because it might not stick on to the SIDES of a vehicle." When I asked what was different between the bedsides and the sides of the truck the guy actually paused, said uh, and then said "we've never done it before." Rhino Liner was cheaper anyways.



Rhino Liner...works, is thick, stuff sticks to it, isn't cheap, and is good forever if they know what they are doing. It does fade but as mentioned above they can do something about that. I didn't care so I just got the regular stuff. Also sucks up road noise like Dynamat. Good quality stuff but you pay for it...worth the money.

Herculiner...works, is thin unless you put a WHOLE lot of it on it, stuff sticks to the texture but not like it's glued to it like Rhino Liner, it's cheap(ish), and should last forever if you take care of it and make the effort to prepare for it and apply it right. Good quality stuff but not quite up to the professionally done stuff. Worth the money if you can't/won't/don't want to spend the big bucks. Don't expect Rhino Liner but don't expect paint with sand in it and you'll like it.

Big Ugly will probably get Rhino Liner in the bed over the rail. It's great for hauling stuff and generally using/abusing the bed of your truck.
The cab floors and the rockers...not sure. I still have to do the interior of the Tracker and might just go hog wild on a 3 day weekend next summer and do everything in sight. Gotta see how the fundage, frugalness, and laziness are doing at the time.



Also be aware that if you put any bedliner on the exterior of a truck any dirt, goo, sand, road crap, etc will leave traces on it. I put some graphite lube into my Tracker's door locks last winter and still have "marks" under the locks where it drooled down the door.
 
AJMBLAZER said:
That's the Herculiner I have on my Tracker. I suck at painting and I figured the Herculiner was cheaper. It's been on there a year this weekend and is holding up nice, but has faded some. PREP PREP PREP! Read the instructions and OBEY THEM!
A friend of mine Herculined the bed of his Ranger...and will tell you to this day that Herculiner sucks. However his prep work sucked. I spent a day sanding, cleaning, sanding, cleaning, preping, Xylol'ing, sanding, cleaning, washing, etc etc etc the lower half of my Tracker. He basically sanded it, washed it, and rolled on one coat. Yeah, it scratched up pretty easily...but then it didn't have anything to stick to and he didn't put it on thick enough.
I also used the Herculiner UV-topcoat. It helps to stabilize the stuff and keep it from fading/degrading. Might be hogwash but I figured for $25 extra and basically a third coat... The only problem was I couldn't find the proper Herculiner rollers to use and the "sorta similar" ones I found didn't work as well. So the UV protectant didn't get into all the nooks and crannies. However I'm happy with it and the Tracker isn't rusting out on me any time soon. Also scares people away from it.:D

I've also had two trucks lined over the bedrails with Rhino Liner...the softer stuff mentioned in a post above. My '99 Ram 1500 shortbed and my '96 Ranger shortbed both got Rhino Liner and I loved it. It held up well and stuff STUCK to it like nothing else. I once did my own version of that Rhino Liner ad and left my tool box sitting half in the bed of the Ranger with the tail gate down...and after several curves, three right hand corners, and one left hand corner over 5 miles it was still there right where I left it. I love the stuff! Nice and thick too.
Recently got a quote from the local place that's done business with me and the guy wants $550 to do Big Ugly's 8' bed over the rail. Prices have gone up but it's a bigger bed and the guy does good work. Hopefully next spring/summer it'll get sprayed.

Line-X...never used it myself. Had friends who used it and liked it.

As mentioned above talk to the dealers/appliers and get a feel for them. A few years back I called around Grand Rapids, MI to get the bedliner put on my Ram...and was spectacularly unimpressed with the answers of the Line-X guys. I also asked about doing the rockers and lower body of the truck...and they "wouldn't guarantee their work because it might not stick on to the SIDES of a vehicle." When I asked what was different between the bedsides and the sides of the truck the guy actually paused, said uh, and then said "we've never done it before." Rhino Liner was cheaper anyways.



Rhino Liner...works, is thick, stuff sticks to it, isn't cheap, and is good forever if they know what they are doing. It does fade but as mentioned above they can do something about that. I didn't care so I just got the regular stuff. Also sucks up road noise like Dynamat. Good quality stuff but you pay for it...worth the money.

Herculiner...works, is thin unless you put a WHOLE lot of it on it, stuff sticks to the texture but not like it's glued to it like Rhino Liner, it's cheap(ish), and should last forever if you take care of it and make the effort to prepare for it and apply it right. Good quality stuff but not quite up to the professionally done stuff. Worth the money if you can't/won't/don't want to spend the big bucks. Don't expect Rhino Liner but don't expect paint with sand in it and you'll like it.

Big Ugly will probably get Rhino Liner in the bed over the rail. It's great for hauling stuff and generally using/abusing the bed of your truck.
The cab floors and the rockers...not sure. I still have to do the interior of the Tracker and might just go hog wild on a 3 day weekend next summer and do everything in sight. Gotta see how the fundage, frugalness, and laziness are doing at the time.



Also be aware that if you put any bedliner on the exterior of a truck any dirt, goo, sand, road crap, etc will leave traces on it. I put some graphite lube into my Tracker's door locks last winter and still have "marks" under the locks where it drooled down the door.

I guess the big question when considering a liquid bedliner is, what do you intend to do with your truck?

Me...I don't need a "bedliner" in the sense that my truck won't be used for "work" and I don't really plan on throwing a bunch of heavy stuff in the back that could potentially scratch it up. I just want something to coat the existing floor, prevent rust, and that'll let me just hose it out if it gets dirty.

Seems to me that the non-slip stuff would be more easily damaged, with it being softer and all. But I think it'd work good for me.

Preferably it'll still look good years down the road, but that's secondary to it meeting the above criteria.
 
Most of the good Rhino Liner and Line-X dealers give people no trouble with patching up scratches. That's part of the warranty. I've heard of people getting hassled but the shops I've talked to (minus the Line-X morons mentioned before) have all been up front about patching it. Most just mentioned they'd want to do it when they were also doing another vehicle or batch of parts so they didn't have to open a batch of the stuff just for a small repair.

Done properly, Herculiner is HARD to beat for the money.
 
AJMBLAZER said:
Done properly, Herculiner is HARD to beat for the money.

Yeah, I've seen some Herc'd or Durabak'd jobs that looked pretty dang nice.
 
Blazer tailgate

Anyone ever done a tailgate for a K5 Blazer? I want to do mine but want it doen in a dark blue to match my new paint job, Yeah, I know, I should have done this first but didn't think about it at the time. I have a heavy tool box that I slide in and out of the back of my Blazer and the tailgate gets all scratched up. It sounds like the 'hard' Rino-Liner is the way to go but I didn't think you could get it colored. The tailgate presents a different chalenge with the access covers for the rear window. Do you have to do everything seperate? I was thinking I would have to cut some cardboard templates and tape them in place and do the covers off the tailgate, then redrill the screw holes and remount it. I was afraid if I did the entire tailgate without removing the covers I would pay hell trying to get them off afterwards if I needed to.

Any comments?
 
What the guy did with my Ranger's tailgate was remove the access cover and then tape and newspaper over the edges. The screw holes got a little bit of tape rolled into a cone pushed into them. He coated the cover seperately and then when I picked up the truck it was already all back together and drying.

Stuff slides pretty well on the softer Rhino Liner. It just won't bounce around and slide like on the bare metal of the bed or the hard plastic of cheap bed liners. If you push on stuff it will slide.
 
I will try to answer all the questions I can.
Rhino Liner,s Tuff Grip, Hardline, and Line x are all roughly a 2-1 polyurea blend. Solormax is a 1-1 aliphatic polyurea, hense the color stability. These products come in 50 gallon drums and are mixed at the guns tip. Herculiner is a one part polyurethane paint with granules in it. From what I have seen of Herculiner and Durabak they are similar. They have a very rough finished texture....like knuckle scraping bloody face rough. One gallon can cover a 6ft bed, but to have it hold up, you probably want 4-5 coats(at least 125 mills...1/8") To achieve that thickness you will spend close to $400. The other issue I have with the roll ons is the granules. They are in the paint down to the first coat. When they are abused, they have the tendency to be ripped from the liner, causing the paint to peel with them. Rhino and Line x are sprayed on smooth and then textured with droplets of the same material...kinda like splaterrs from the gun. No matter what you do to the texture, you will not affect the base layer, as a result you keep a watertight seel= no rust.
Rhino and Line x take roughly 5-12 seconds to dry to the touch(hp-lp).Both take 24 hrs to fully cure. You can walk on them after 10 seconds, but no heavy loads for 24hrs.
Prices have gone up in the past few yrs, petrolium based...nuff said.
Cleanliness....The roll ons have a tendancy to hold dirt...like the old undercoating on the chevys...no matter what you do it will not come out. I can speak for Rhino Linings on this, but I don't know about the linex. Rhino will come clean with a bristle brush and some simple green.
Prepping is different for the spray-on as oppose the the roll ons. Wire tape is used in the prep of Rhino and Linex...after it is sprayed the wire is pulled for a nice clean edge...edges can be made with razors, but it looks like ass.

Rhino Linings is the cleanex of bedliners, and Line x is getting up there. The problem with being that big is every bedliner out there is called a Rhino Liner whether it is or isn't. When you see a bedliner that looks like ass, look for a tag, they ussually have a tag in them. This tag will tell you what brand, and where it was sprayed...no tag = cheap imatation. When you see the tag, and the liner looks like ass, avoid that specific dealer.
Oh and the Hardline can be pigmented blue.
The other thing to look out for is bull**** ads at a dealer. I have seen certain brand dealers get a tailgate sprayed at a competitors place. Before the product cures, they take a chisel to it and peel it up. They then display it in there shop and say" look its peeling".
Prep is all, product depends on the use. The tuff Grip is more elastic than the Hardline or Line x. It can maintain its properties at lower tempatures. As a result it is softer, therefore sprayed on thicker. The Hardline and Line x are harder, but ideal for mason dumps because of the lack of grip. Solormax is in the middle of the three as for as properties, but it will retain its color for a very long time.
I hope my rant helps.
 
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