Skid plates- finish

[Big E]

I bought a set if RCI plates for my Tacoma. Many people question whether to get a power coat or do a home bed liner job on them. Here are some unscientific results of my project.

My front plate is powder coated. It shows rust from hard use.

My second and third plates are home bed liner covered. (Rust-Oleum). They to show rust but the coating is gouged in places but still protecting.

Follow directions for the spray on liner and prime. The cross member shows the damage going to the primer but not rusting in many places.

The bed liner to me seems to do a good job for less dime. I will repaint some time in the future.

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[OffroadTreks]

Paint is probably the best, because rocks are always going to cut into paint and powder coat. No escaping that. Paint is the easiest to touch up from time to time.

 

[Roger352]

Parts tend to rust under the powder coating. I like to clean back, rust treat, red lead then 2 or 3 top coats.

 

[Albacore]

To save money I painted my sliders myself. Mutiple coats of primer followed by mutiple costs of RO already bed liner. I love the finished look. They match my ladder and roof rack (which were powdercoated). So far they have held up well. It's good to know that I can always touch them up in the future when needed.

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[4runnerrudy]

That is really interesting about the bedliner. Mine are just coated with rustoleum but are overdue for a re-coating.

 

[Mike W]

Powder coat, paint, bedliner, none of it addresses the real cause of rust.

The outfit I bought my sliders, skids, bumper from (Tactical 4x4) uses a place called Zinc Nation (zincnation.com) Which sort of galvanizes steel with a Aluminum metalizing process.. basically sprayed on aluminum coating. http://www.zincnation.com/itWorks.html

Says right on the front page .

If your pieces are metallized by us, there will be no visible rust for 3 years! No steel erosion for 10 years or we will metallize your problem pieces again for FREE!*

. Even if it gets gouged it is supposed to still work, but it is pretty tough to mess it up.

I had them all powder coated also, but that is just for cosmetic reasons, they are rough textured white with just the aluminum. (the parts are steel).

 

[Mike W]

to add,. that metalizing option might be a rare option, I'm not sure, wasn't trying to make it sound like that's the only or best way. the powder coat guy i use hadn't seen it before either.

what i did before was powder coat with paint touch ups and periodically sand blasting and recoating... it sucked and i got rid of those sliders in favor of these. iowa road salt is insanely evil stuff.

 

[OffroadTreks]

And what happens when you drag a rock over it exposing new metal??

 

[QCNR]

For steel parts you can't beat galvanizing, then a coat of paint for decoration.

 

[Mike W]

And what happens when you drag a rock over it exposing new metal??

From my link above... http://www.zincnation.com/itWorks.html

Damaged Zinc metallized/paint coating. The galvanic effect.


Inevitably coatings get damaged. As we have seen with coatings that offer only barrier protection when damage occurs, rust and steel erosion is inevitable. This is when the true magic of metallizing is understood. Metallized/paint coatings can be scratched clear through into the steel and because of the galvanic protection achieved with metallizing, rust cannot occur. All of the zinc in the area must first be used in the corrosion process before any rust can happen. This can take 15 to 20 years.

EDIT: I also found a nice description of what metalizing is.

The metalizing process always begins with proper surface preparation. Next, aluminum wire or zinc wire is continuously melted in an electric arc spray or gas flame spray gun. Clean, compressed air strips droplets of molten metal from the wire depositing these particles onto the steel forming the protective coating. This sprayed metal coating is both a barrier coating and a galvanic coating in one. A single metalized coating protects steel for 30 years or longer depending upon the application, coating thickness and sealing.

Metallizing is considered a cold process in that the aluminum or zinc is deposited onto steel by spraying rather than by dipping the steel into a bath of molten zinc as with galvanizing. The steel remains relatively cool at about 250º-300ºF. There is virtually no risk of heat distortion or weld damage by metalizing.