Powder Coating vs. Spray Can

Just purchased some RCI Rock Sliders with the raw finish. I don't plan on doing any extreme off-roading; just your basic overlanding and off-roading to places that could potentially damage the rocker panel. Does anyone in SoCal have a good recommendation for an affordable Powder Coating shop? or know how much it costs?

Or just spraying the rust-oleum bed liner paint on would look just as good and cheaper. If you have pics of this, please post it! Thanks in advance.

 

Powder coating is always stronger but not so great for trying to touch up if they get a mark on them. Some people use bed liner to get the best of both worlds. But I would be interested in any cost effective powder coating locally. As I have a front hitch coming in soon. As my powder coating oven is not large enough to handle that job.

 

VHT rollbar/chassis paint is some awesome stuff. No primer needed, sprays on easily and the finish is NICE. I recently discovered it when I tried it on my bed bars and the finish looks comparable to PC in my opinion.

 

Your average Powdercoating job for sliders should be around $200 (give or take). While spray painting should be about $20-40 with a good etching primer. This isn’t counting the prep materials like sandpaper and acetone/degreaser plus the labor involved.

I’m a fan of good powder for things that I never really expect to touch up but I’ll paint things that I know I’ll be revisiting from time to time.

 

Nice thing about a rattle can is you can always touch it up and no one will notice.
My company has used Electro Tech Powder coating in North County SD without many issues

 

Personally, I have never had paint last worth a damn. No matter what I use and what I do for prep.

That said, have not tried that product Randy posted above.

Also have heard good things about Steel-it if youre looking to go the spray paint route

 

You're also in the NE where everything rusts, probably even glass lol

 

I would use a acid etch primer before, then rattle blast em. That primer makes a huge difference.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I will probably go with the VHT recommendation above with the acid etch primer. I'm sure the sliders will get chipped and would require correcting from time to time so it might be easier with this option. Now to installing the rock sliders...

 

haha aint that some truth

 

You guys who are looking for powder coaters, you should post your location. There are TONS of good places in SoCal. I use Reliable Powder Coating in Downey - great prices and the stuff they've done for me has turned out great. A friend uses Americoat out in OC and there are a ton of good ones down there but be careful as some are quite expensive. Dunham Metal Processing is another one I can highly recommend but my experience with them is their zinc and anodizing but they also do powder and ceramic coating.

I recently refinished a set of used sliders. It wasn't worth it to me to pay for powder coating so I sprayed them and used Rustoleum bedliner. It turned out fine but it's a harder coating than I had expected. Based on how the factory powder coating was "sand blasted" off on the underside by road debris I don't think a hard or brittle coating is good for sliders. I wanted to use a bedliner that had some "give" to it but the product I used wasn't it. Having a more rubberized type coating I think would be best - at least for the underside.

Overall, I like the idea of paint so that you can just easily touch up and have it match.

 

Interesting about the powder coat getting sandblasted as well. I would have figured that would hold up better. But what you say makes sense.

Just another thought though, for those considering. No reason why you cant touch up powder coat with spray paint. Lots of colors and finishes so you can find one that should match pretty close. Ive done this on my ARB bar before to prevent rust as much as possible. Mask off the area, scuff with scotch brite and then paint. Might not be a perfect match (I dont really care how it looks) but most people wouldn't notice anyhow

 

I'm sure it varies a lot on the use and of course the quality of the prep and coating. Mine are very OLD BAMF sliders and the previous owner had about 5yrs and a lot of miles on dirt/gravel roads for fishing and camping trips. Lots of the coating was blasted off and surface rust was present.

You're totally right about the touch up though, I wouldn't hesitate at all to use spray paint to touch up power. Sure is better than rust!

 

Ended up using the VHT that you recommended. Looks good! Appreciate it.

Follow Nimbus_pro on IG for build.

Ended

 

Good shit! Glad you like it.

 

Looking at eastwood self etching primer and extreme chassis black paint for my front hitch. As I'm trying to do this under $100

 

It’ll definitely be less than $100.

Anyone know how much I can sell these steps for?

 

Update: Installed one side of the RCI Rock Slider. It’s was bitch to screw a couple of the bolts but at least it’s complete with the exception of one bolt. I said f#%k it, can’t get it in. The black spray looks good on the rig though