Cold Temperatures in the North vs Bed Liner

Just an update on my family situation. My son is now home and doing fine. The test results all came back negative and they are hoping it was just a viral thing that has came and gone. We are keeping a close eye on him, but he is back to sleeping and eating all day!
 
We take good health for granted until something happens that's out of our control. Glad to hear your son is recovering.
 
Stripping down the fenders right now! Outsides are pretty much done, need to do the insides. Patch some metal, primer, then bedline!
 
Outlaw;39710 said:
Ok so I let the door of opportunity close in my face here in Northwest Montana. I am ready to epoxy prime (SPI) the underside of my truck cab. The temperatures are too cold to spray outside, Im going to have to do it in my shop. I keep it warm in there, but it sounds like a mini disaster spraying bed liner inside a shop. I have two questions.

1. Can anyone tell me they have had good luck spraying bedliner inside their shop without getting it everywhere?

2. I am using a seam sealer on the floor. Do I apply that as soon as the epoxy dries and then let it set overnight before the bedliner? I understand the tech sheet says at least an hour or overnight, but I do not see seam sealer in the equation.

I am using the gun recommended and purchased by SPI. I dont want to wait until summer to do the bedliner outside, but I suppose I could do the epoxy and a quick scuff in the spring as soon as the temperatures come back up.

I am interested to hear how this works out for you and any lessons learned. I came here to find out about spraying bed liner and how it may go in cold weather because it got cold here last week in Whitefish MT. Wasn't expecting to see someone else in the same boat. I am a little behind on this project so my new plan is to heat my shop and the truck bed with a Kerosene jet type heater and IR heat lamps. I would turn off the heater, open a door with a fan and spray. When the fumes clear turn the heater and lamps back on. This would be for my wife's truck, which I decided to repaint so that I could get some experience with epoxy paint. The last cars I painted were in the 70's with lacquer or enamel. I have a couple of older cars (52 Chevy and 51 Mercury) that I will repaint when I feel I have the process down.

--David
 
David,

The Epoxy went well. The first try I either lost air pressure at a fitting that was not tight, or just got too close and sprayed too much paint too fast. I finished it up and let it dry. I wet sanded that heavy build the next day. As long as I sanded it anyway, I used a little body filler in a few low spots and let it all dry another 24 hours at 75 degrees (heated shop). Next day I sprayed the spots I had worked on, let those flash 30", then came back over it with another coat, waited 30", then another coat. The first coat was done in the doorway with the sun hitting the surface. I used one of those infarred thermometers to make sure it was a minimum of 70 to shoot. Then it turned cold and I had to do the rest inside once I had the temps up high enough to maintain the 70 degrees. After it was painted, I surrounded it by four tarps inside my shop and put an electric heater inside the make shift oven and let it sit for 24 hours with metal temp of plus 90 degrees. Keep in mind I only did the underside of the cab floor. A total cab or truck is a lot more to deal with when the weather has you hopping in and out of the shop.
 
Nope, still stripping the fenders. Outsides are bare metal, found some hidden bondo spots that need to be straightened, then stripping the inside. All housework this weekend. I'll post up some results when I get them!
 
Ok Mitch,

Here are my results. In my humble opion..........its a big mistake to use a light colored seam sealer if your going to try and cover with Black bedliner. My first coat did really well, but looked semi transparent over the beige color Fusor 800 DTM seal sealer, Next time will use the black seam sealer for sure (803 DTM). By the time you get light colored seam sealers covered with Black Bedliner, I think you have used more product than necessary and if you looking for a softer smoother texture, trying to cover light colored seam sealer will fight you.

Stir Agressively, they are not joking. I went the three minutes, but it looked a little thick pouring it out of the mixing cup to the air gun canister, so I stirred it longer and harder. It got thinner just like it says in the tech manual. Using the product unreduced it got pretty thick by the time I got to the last quarter (mixing one quart at a time). This problem appeared to increase the less thinner you added, non reduced being the most obvious. I had to up the air pressure and keep adjusting the nozzle out to get the product out of the gun. This could be I did not stir it long enough?

Overall, very satisfied with the results. Heavier than I wanted but that was becasue I used it to cover a light colored seam sealer. All is not lost. Its applied heavier than I wanted, but it was my first try. For protection, strength is better if its thicker (per tech support). My only concern using Black Bedliner over Black seam sealer is: If you dont thin down the first coat or two, you will have a very fine pattern that will be extremely difficult to see if you have full coverage. I think thats why they want it thinned down the first couple of coats, to get 100 per cent coverage. THEN texture with unreduced material to get your desired texture. If you just start with a light texture, it will look good but you may not have full coverage.

For what its worth, that what I have to offer anyone doing this for the first time.
 
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