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Powder coat or paint and why?

85 Jimmy

85 Jimmy

Sheepdog
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I just picked up a rear bumper/tire carrier that needs to be painted or coated? I either want a semi gloss black or some kind of textured black. I don't know if powder coating can be textured.

My wife said I should get it sprayed with a bedliner...

Which would you do and why?
 
id do a bedliner before powder coat.

Im not a fan of powder coat at all to be honest. At least on things that will get scratched.. Seems as soon as there is one spot that gets scratched, the rest of it goes to crap from it separating.
 
I would also go bedliner. very durable without being brittle and if it starts fading, you can always just hit it wth some spray paint and it's like new again.
 
I'd definitely go with something that gives the option of touch up (ie; not powder coat).

The bedliner stuff sounds good just spend a little extra on the UV resistant stuff.
 
I may just paint it. On my way home from school I'm going to get a quote from the bedliner guys up the road.
I'm also going to get a quote for it to just be media blasted. I'm too lazy to clean it with a wire wheel and grinder. Plus, I don't feel like having black boogers.
 
I have tried rattle can rustoleum, POR-15 before starting to powdercoat stuff. The spray-on paint lets the rust in pretty soon. POR-15 topcoat peels off after a year, then the base starts turning from black to grey in an uneven fashion. Then the POR-15 peels off in strips or sheets. This is even without any scratches in the finish

I haven't done bedliner, but everybody says UV changes the color over time. Plus the DIY stuff reportedly doesn't hang on as well. So if you need professional application you're not really touching it up yourself anyway. And I would hate have to go back and weld on something coated in polyurethane. Not to mention trying to keep mud stains out of it.

Powdercoat can be textured, that's how my bumpers and sliders are. It's a much safer surface to step on than factory chrome, I can tell you that much. You can touch up small scratches with oil paint, but after enough abuse you would need to get it at least partially recoated. But it would outlast several paint jobs.

If you want to use paint - use real automotive paint. Rattle can would only work if a) you live in the desert and b) you think it's fun to repaint every year.

Whatever you decide, get it done when the steel is new. If it already has rust, get it well blasted and then pretreat before the finish. Powdercoaters now have protective pre-treatment that lets snowplows hold up in the salt.
 
It's too late on the rust, it already has it. I stopped by the powder coater on my way home. The door says they are open until 5pm, it was locked, there was fedex slips taped to the door, and their mailbox was over flowing...:dunno: I was atleast going to use them to blast the metal...
 
ktmoutfront said:
Plasti-Dip?
Click to expand...

That stuff looks pretty nifty. What would happen if I didn't completely clean ALL of the rust off and then sprayed that stuff on? Would it continue to rust away from the inside? Or will it stop the rust because it doesn't allow air to get to the metal? Would it be best to first spray the bumper with a "rust convertor", after wire wheeling it the best I can?
 
Rust usually has some moisture in it. If you seal it up it will sort of block oxygen, but not completely. Rust never sleeps. If you can't get it completely blasted clean, then yes, use a converter product that is water cured, as it dries out the rust. However, now you're getting into mystery territory of what will stock to that - other than regular paint and primer like it's designed for.
 
In some places i'm a fan of just plain old spray paint. Now with the hammered in brush on quarts, even better.
 
My vote is to paint it. If it's bare metal, shoot it with an etching primer first. I have no experience with bedliner. Powder coat is the worst option. I don't know the rust situation around the gulf coast. In the northeast, as soon as powder coating gets one scratch on it, moisture gets in between the coating and the metal and you end up with with nice rusty rotting flakes bubbling under the coating.
 
I would bedline it like using Herculiner. Or spend a little more and have it Line-x'd.
 
karlmagnum said:
I would bedline it like using Herculiner. Or spend a little more and have it Line-x'd.
Click to expand...

My experience with herculiner is that it's garbage. I rolled it into the bed of an old Toyota pickup that I had. I followed the instructions exactly the way it says to do it and did a pretty good prep job. After about a year of doing it it looked like garbage.
 
cybrfire said:
In some places i'm a fan of just plain old spray paint. Now with the hammered in brush on quarts, even better.
Click to expand...

I agree especially if you plan on beating it up and touching it up later. Trying to clean mud/dirt out of bedliner isn't fun either.
 
I'm gonna throw a vote in here for this stuff.

http://www.kilz.com/hammerite/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=a4e390033f9ff110VgnVCM1000008a05d103RCRD

They used to sell it under just the Hammerite name. Looks like someone has bought out the rights in the US now.
I painted my big bumper with it about 20 years ago now. Its looking a little ratty, but considering the number of trees, walls, steel parts, and vehicles it has knocked down or destroyed, its in great shape.

Its got diamond plate on top, and despite decades of muddy and sandy boots walking around on the diamonds, the paint has done really well.

They claim that the paint has tiny shards of tempered glass in it that interlock as it dries to offer a very abrasion resistance surface.

Don't know for sure, but its the toughest paint I have ever used.

I'll try to snap some pics tomorrow if anyone is interested. There are some pics of my bumper already online here, but they do not show the paint condition up close.
 
I have a friend that suggested "hammerite" but I couldn't find it local.

I ended up just wire wheeling it really good, wiping it down with rubbing alcohol to get my oily fingerprints and rust dust off, rattle canning it with some self etching primer, and now I'm hitting it with some satin/semi gloss black from a rattle can.

I still need to do the tire carrier. The whole thing is basically tube and I think it'll take forever to wire wheel, so it'll get blasted.

If it ends up looking bad in a year or 2 I'll take it off and have it blasted and do something else with it.
 
Little late but I was going to say use: rustoleum appliance epoxy paint
I've used it on frames and other areas and it's held up great due to the type of paint and how well it bonds to the surface.
 
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