Slider paint

I just received my rsg sliders and started the priming process what would be the best rattle can flat black to use?

 

The one that's readily available near you and easy to get. It's going to get scuffed regardless, so make it as easy as possible to get touch up.

 

Prep is way more important than the paint. Wear nitrile gloves and use acetone to wipe all the oils off. I even used laundry soda and water to clean them after sanding. Use a good self-etching primer and then a quality spray paint. Here's a good one to use for prep and painting. https://trail4runner.com/2020/03/14/diy-painting-rock-sliders-4runner/

 

+1 on this. It's all about the prep work that you do. If you prep it right, then the paint will look great. I've used the Rhino Liner/LineX stuff on steps/rails before, and it looked great. Mind you, nothing last forever and the more off roading you do, the more it'll get scuffed up.

 

God damn.. I also bought rsg raw sliders. Such a pain in the ass work.. not worth it. Took me several days, factoring in drying time between coats.

Prep very well.. grind down surface rusts.. spray painting will be tricky, to get coverage in the areas obscured by the top plate. I brushed on paint for those areas that spray can can’t not reach. The rsg cutout logo was esp paint in the ass.. so many difficult to reach surfacez to prep

Also I have found the washer can easily bend and be pushed into the bolt hole.. I guess that’s fine.. but looks very ghetto.

do you have kdss? There is one hole very close to the kdss lines that is difficult to get a bolt in.. you have to bend the lines as if they are about to break

When driving on gravel road, you will have gravel thrown from tires hitting the sliders. You will find the paint to easily chip from these impacts.. just brush it back on

 

+2 on dis ^

 

this ^ I had to fight that too

 

how does everyone think professionally powder coated dom sliders paint holds up to chips compared to home rattle can sliders? I just finished a third gravel road weekend trip, since installing, zero chips yet

 

1. Alcohol or acetone clean
2. Tremclad Rust Reformer (flat black) x1 coat
3. Tremclad Rust Paint semigloss black x4 coats

Do the same before every winter to touch up rock scars (assuming you'll be using the sliders for their intended purpose)

 

In my experience powdercoat is more durable than paint when getting stepped on every day. However, when you toboggan the vehicle over a few large rocks, the scars reach bare metal regardless of what coating or paint is on the sliders. Semigloss black paint blends OK with powdercoat for touch-ups.

 

My preferred route - have them shipped powder coated then touch up with rattle can as needed. When they get really scratched or faded, repaint with rattle can - over the powder coat. The powder will still be in good shape where it matters - the inside corners, etc. - where they don't get scratched, but where rust would otherwise form.

Starting with raw metal really is a pain in the ass unless you're in the South West. In Atlanta, we have about a 3-hour window between winter and summer, and again between summer and fall, when it's warm enough to paint and the humidity is close to 50%. Rattle cans are simple, but really require the right temperature and humidity - to work well .

For rattle cans, I like the bed liner paint. It's not nearly as course as real/professional bed liner, but is great for steps - good grip, cleans up like regular paint.

 

Powder coat then touch up occasionally with rustoleum. If you don't want to deal with rust this works the best.

Other options would be:
Raptor Liner (a bit expensive but a very good option)
Steel-It (also expensive. Dries to a gray-ish black. But works great)
Rustoleum. (Will eventually corrode. But the best budget option IMO)

Project farm did a video a while back comparing different black paints. Steel it won I believe but Rustoleum was almost just as good at a much cheaper cost.

 

What I do as well. Doing the same for my skids as well. Spray paint rustoleum over powder coating. No idea if that's right or wrong. Not practical for me to remove and send to powder coating again.

 

For me, the professionally powder coating has held well except for whenever I drag the weight of the vehicle across an obstacle. I'm really most impressed with how the primer has held up. I've had several occasions where the kickout pushed the whole rig out of the way of a boulder or tree, and when I got home the primer was still intact. All I needed to do was take a couple of minutes and touch up the kickout with rattle-can rustoleum textured black and the slider looks like the day it was installed.

My sliders are BudBuilt, but I suspect other professional powder-coated sliders will have similar results.

 

That's my approach. As noted by others, I find semi-gloss a better match than flat for touch-ups on powder coat. Also, even if painting from bare metal, semi-gloss doesn't show dirt and splashes as much as flat.

 

100+ I was misled by those YouTube videos including Turd Jon.. made it seem like an easy spray job.. holy shit was it time consuming annoying work..zero gratification at the end because I was kicking myself for having signed up for this shtty busy work.

painting rock sliders is literally the most regrettable automotive diy I have ever done..

 

You might want to get them sandblasted, just for prep. You’d sort of split the difference in cost/effort of the full powder coating

 

I've had lots of parts for my other Toyotas sand/media blasted then powder coated by my favorite shop. The parts go from the blast cabinet to the booth - no time to oxidize. But having anything sandblasted then bringing it home to paint... I'm not kidding - the conditions have to be sooooo right for that to work. On the east coast, the humidity will cause raw/clean steel to "flash rust" in minutes.

A few years ago, I bought a winch bumper for my FJ Cruiser - raw. The plan was to paint it myself. I think my experience must've been similar to @Yobruhitsme's. I sounded like Clark Griswold when the Christmas lights wouldn't come on.

I degreased it, washed it to get rid of the degreaser, then wiped it with acetone... and before I could get the primer flowing, the orange haze set it. It was literally rusting before I could get paint on it. I had to do the bumper I sections - wipe, paint, wipe, paint, wipe, paint - just to get full coverage of primer.

^That^ is kind of a worst-case scenario. I should've waited a couple months to clean/paint the bumper. Humidity at 45-60% and temps between 55 and 70 degrees would've made that project much (!) simpler.

 

Flash rusting is a pain for this stuff. One hack is after blasting spray down the parts with WD-40 until the conditions are right to paint them.
This is something the manufacturing plant I work for can do if we do not have the ability to wash the parts immediately after blasting. (the washer fluid is a mix of solvent and rust inhibitor)

 

I do what others here do. I'll pay for powdercoating and use piece until stuff happens. I like DupiColor Rust Barrier for touch-ups. Doesn't really match, but I don't care. I spray it on bare metal, rust, whatever. A little rubbery and high gloss texture to it, and it seems to hold up quite well. If I'm really feeling energetic, the powdercoat gets used as a primer, sand it, and apply Raptor Liner. Raptor Liner is near idiot-proof. I've done entire vehicles before, and folks think I had a pro do it. Nope, just this non-painting idiot.

 

I guess I should chalk up another item in the plus column for living in AZ.
Yeah, it's brutally hot here right now but at least I don't have to think about all this kind of stuff.
Buy a bare metal part. Wipe it down with some solvent when it arrives. Shoot it with some decent brand and easily available rattle can and DONE!

 

I agree, sliders have to be one of the biggest pains for that exact reason. But a fair warning to others, stripping off a bad powder coating job, followed by prepping the victimized steel left behind, is about 10 times worse (in terms of time)than prepping bare steel.

The bad powdercoat that came on my sliders when I bought them lasted about two years before it started to bubble in spots. It acted exactly like a rubberized undercoating that lets water in behind any chips. I tried to chase it by localized stripping and touch ups, but by the third year it was a complete mess. It took an obscene amount of time to strip it, grind rust, clean, and paint. Materials costs to do it myself were nothing to sneeze at either. Sandblasting quotes were nuts, so that wasn’t an option either.

It’s important to keep in mind that powdercoating is only as good as how it was prepped. The rust on mine was not related to rock rash. All it took was a few gravel chips, and that was enough for the salt water to crawl in.

That said, I’d probably chance powdercoat on sliders again. Because tubing structures are just a horrible thing to prep/paint. Lord help you if you have top plates. I don’t mind prepping and painting armor since it’s flat. But round tubing and corners are just horrible.

This is why sliders should not be on anybodies list of mods if they are going to be purely as a step or cosmetic.

 

Nah. It’s not that easy lol

 

Yeah it is

 

For a half assed job.. yes anyone can speed run it

this one especially casual

https://youtu.be/QDYWzecjQ-U?si=vxiYTZvi0XswvxSb

 

OK. Sure.

 

I'm the diplomat on this one - @Yobruhitsme and @BLKNBLU are both right. When the conditions allow, rattle cans are great. I've painted full Jeeps, wheels, bumpers, etc. with great success - that lasted years. But when the metal is bare and the conditions are wrong it really is an absolute *&$%ing mess. I currently have three or four projects on hold - waiting for Georgia weather to cooperate.

Because all posts are better with pics...
Everything on the Jeep was rattle canned - the body, cage, wheels, bumpers... The FJ's wheels and bumper were rattle canned. I also "half-cafe'd" a '73 CB500 - gloss black wheels, etc.

 

I agree with paint surface prep being key to longevity of paint jobs. Rattle can with brushed-on in corners can do a good job.
I did lots of ocean boat maintenance years ago and found that steel can be treated with "rust lock" liquids that chemically converts rust into a stable grey color that penetrates and makes a great primer surface. Most of these "rust lock" products do not harm powder coatings, and makes ongoing spot touch-ups easy. I have a very old quart bottle on my garage shelf (I obtained from local marine supply store) that I use as my bare or rusty steel prep.

 

Barring perfect humidity conditions, I’ve had a little luck preventing flash rust on the final wipe-down if I do it under the sun after the metal has been heated by it. Your acetone doesn’t go as far, but who cares if you need to get paint on it sooner rather than later.

 

Yeah. I'm lucky in my neck of AZ rust is a non issue. I feel for you guys.