Truck beds can be very useful for transporting all kinds of things, but they can be vulnerable to scratches and dents if those things aren’t properly secured. One way to ensure protection against shifting cargo is by spraying a high-quality bed liner, such as Rhino HardLine, onto your truck bed.
In fact, doing so is a good idea even if you don’t use your truck bed often since it will help protect against rust and corrosion. However, before you get someone to apply a spray-on bed liner to your truck, you should ask about surface preparation.
4 Types of Surface Preparation
The way that the truck bed is prepared for the spray-on liner will have a big impact on how effectively the bed liner adheres to the surface and how evenly it will be applied. Because of this, it’s essential that you ask the installer what kind of surface preparation they do before they apply the spray-on bed liner. The following are the four most commonly used surface preparation methods:
- Chemical Etch Preparation – With a chemical etch preparation, a chemical treatment is used on the surface. Basically, it etches the surface, thereby creating highly adhering oxides. While this is a common way to prepare surfaces for bonding, it’s not very effective for truck beds. It’s very inconsistent, which means that the bed liner won’t adhere in a uniform manner. The liner will be much more likely to scrape and peel off, making it the lowest quality preparation method available. If an installer tells you that they use the chemical etch preparation method, it’s best to find someone else.
- ScotchBrite Scuff Preparation – The ScotchBrite Scuff method works by scuffing the surface of the truck bed so that the liner will adhere to the bed more effectively. It’s a type of surface preparation that many Rhino installers use. The liner should bond successfully if this treatment is done properly; however, the overall quality of the outcome depends on the person doing the prep work. This means that if they don’t have the proper training or experience, they may end up doing a poor job, which will affect the quality of the liner’s application. If the installer tells you that they use the ScotchBrite Scuff preparation method, make sure to find out about their experience using this method.
- Hand Sand Block Preparation – Using a sand block by hand provides a lot of control to the person using the method. In fact, if the installer has a lot of experience and expertise using the hand sand block preparation method, there’s a good chance it will be even more effective at preparing the surface for bonding with the liner than the ScotchBrite Scuff preparation method. But, again, this all depends on the person doing the prep work.
- Power Sanding Preparation – Out of all the different surface preparation methods, power sanding the surface using a dual action sander is the best way to go. The use of a power tool provides more accuracy and better control to the person using it. It is also much less dependent on their experience and skill level to be effective. However, it does take a little bit longer to prep the bed this way, which is why it’s often a little bit more expensive. But you get what you pay for, and your liner is going to bind to your truck bed much more successfully if this process is used.
For more information about our Rhino HardLine spray-on bed liner our liner surface preparation process, then be sure to contact us at Z-One in Toledo by calling 419-478-3402 today.
