Custom/DIY Truck Camper Tie Downs
Looking to avoid the $600 price tag on the torklift frame mounting system. Anyone have a good solution? TC Lance 845 2800# Dry No Slide Out GMC 2500HD SRW
Forum Discussion
JimK-NY wrote:
I wondered about painting. Seems like the usual Krylon or Rustoleum paint would not last very long. I am not sure what Torqlift and others use but I would guess a powder coat or baked on enamel not some home spray/paint application. Or just let is rust.
Most commercial product like that are Powder Coated. It's durable and efficient, if done right. My old mounts are cheap and poorly PC'd. Good manufacturers with degrease, sand blast, clean again, dry, and apply the PC.
Spray paint like you mentioned is kinda the same. Better prep, better durability. Another step I've done on pieces if warranted and the customer wants to pay for it, is clear over top of the color. Prime, 2-3 coats color, 2-3 coats clear. Clear helps protect the color from fading longer, IMO, and if it gets scratched, it's less visible then the color getting scratched. Few squirts of clear over top and your good.
Down side of PC is you can't touch it up like paint. You gotta sand out the rust/flakey bits and re PC. Though you can touch up PC with paint. We had the local auto paint shop color match some little touch up bottles for us to match our 'Gunmetal Grey" PC we use to use on just about every product. Couple hundred CD rack's getting shipped our getting the ol' in-and-out from trade show to trade show, you get dings. And if UPS's gorilla's smash a pallet of product YET AGAIN, it's easy to just mail a little bottle to them.
If I was building my own, I'd go belt and braces. Color PC then a clear PC over that. But I'd also like something low friction to line the inside of the receiver tube. The in and out really gouges up the paint/PC.
Then again, I'm the guy that walked into my PC'er handed him something I'd rusted the **** out of and said "Here, clear coat it!" That lead to visits by rep's of three powder manufactures that found we were pulling it off. The fun is in them not being able to replicate it b/c they weren't using the same rusting method I was, and I surely wasn't revealing that secret. LOL!
