Truck Bed Liner for Speaker Cab Finish

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zaphod B
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Zaphod B

Zaphod B

Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
This weekend I'm going to start on a 2 X 12 cab. I'm going to model it on the Avatar "contemporary" style, which looks like the modern Orange cabs, with the very thick front edging.

Instead of tolex or cabinet carpet, I'm going to apply pickup truck bed liner to the exterior of the cab, in the hope that I'll get a tough long-wearing surface. I called a nearby truck accessory dealer that does Rhino Liner beds and those fuckers quoted me "between $200 and $400" to spray it! Fuck 'em. :mad:

There are a couple of DIY products (Herculon, for example) that can be rolled on so that's what I'll try. It should be an interesting project.
 
Zaphod B said:
This weekend I'm going to start on a 2 X 12 cab. I'm going to model it on the Avatar "contemporary" style, which looks like the modern Orange cabs, with the very thick front edging.

Instead of tolex or cabinet carpet, I'm going to apply pickup truck bed liner to the exterior of the cab, in the hope that I'll get a tough long-wearing surface. I called a nearby truck accessory dealer that does Rhino Liner beds and those fuckers quoted me "between $200 and $400" to spray it! Fuck 'em. :mad:

There are a couple of DIY products (Herculon, for example) that can be rolled on so that's what I'll try. It should be an interesting project.
Click to expand...

Yup, k-mart and the likes have knock offs of the Rhino stuff.
I have a few cabs with this stuff on them ...but you have to wear gloves when moving them, it will just tear the sh!t out of your pretty pink hands!!! OUCH



:cool:
 
Please keep us posted on the outcome. I looked in to doing this a while back and never finished the project. I do know that Herculiner is only available in a couple of colors. I was looking for a tintable version and never found one that got good reviews.

Good Luck
 
Zaphod B said:
Instead of tolex or cabinet carpet, I'm going to apply pickup truck bed liner to the exterior of the cab, in the hope that I'll get a tough long-wearing surface.
Click to expand...

What about a gun rack...will it have one?

;)


:D
 
moresound said:
Yup, k-mart and the likes have knock offs of the Rhino stuff.
I have a few cabs with this stuff on them ...but you have to wear gloves when moving them, it will just tear the sh!t out of your pretty pink hands!!! OUCH

:cool:
Click to expand...
It's that rough? I know that it's touted as "anti-slip" but that's ridiculous! :eek:
 
I think you should tar & feather it....

:)

This the effect you would get:

T&F1copy.jpg
 
I have read that the DIY bedliner stuff can soften in heat- even the heat of a hot day. Given a speaker might get much hotter while riding to a gig in a box van, I am shying away from the stuff.
 
doesn't make sense that it would get soft. It's meant for the bed of a pickup which gets scorching in the sun.
I've never heard of it getting soft and it seems like you'd have heard of truck owners complaining about that.

Had a friend who did his amp in it ........ looked quite good.
 
Even if the apply-it-yourself stuff works as well as the real thing, as it wears it's going to get gouged forming ridges that can damage more than sissy-boy hands.

Some people put their cabs in cars and vans, rather than trucks and that will tear up upholstery bigtime.
 
Of all the DIY brands of truck bed liner there is one that stands out far above the rest - and that's Dura-bak (http://www.nonslipcoating.com/)

Their DIY product is in my opinion tougher than the commercially sprayed products and only slightly more expensive than the other DIY brands.

Aside from being tough, Dura-bak can be repaired - most bed liner products whether commercially sprayed or rolled/painted on by a DIY'er cannot be repaired once it's fully cured - about a month after application. Dura-bak can be reapplied to the abraded area no sweat, and it will stick, and cure "into" the original finish. That may be an important advantage to you since you're not painting a truck bed but rather a wooden cabinet. If it chips off, you simply apply more to the area and it's back the way it was.

Also, the professional spray-on stuff does not stick to wood very well - keep that in mind before you plunk down your hard-earned cash. Durabak does stick to wood directly with or without a primer, as long as the wood isn't fresh wood and full of sap. While that won't be an issue for you with a guitar amp or speaker cabinet it is important if you're making outdoor wooden furniture out of fresh lumber (which is how I discovered the sap/durabak issue myself).

Dura-bak will also send you a free sample - a 2" square piece of metal coated on one side with the stuff, and I advise you to do what I did - lay it on your workbench and beat the snot out of it with your hammer. Fold it in half, unfold it. Cook it with a propane torch. Beat it to death some more.

I actually abused the free sample so much that the metal fatigued and broke into two pieces, but was still held together by the durabak finish, and to break that as well I had to fold it all the way and unfold it all the way about 5 times, then it finally yielded to my abuse.

Whatever you use to apply it, expect to throw it out afterwards. Wear the oldest, cruddiest clothes you have, and wear latex gloves with canvas work-gloves on top. It's really difficult to get it off your skin and if it cures on your skin you're stuck with it until your body decides to shed off your outer layer of skin which is about a week, week and a half.
 
Thanks a ton Frederic,

That's looks exactly like what I had in mind for my cab. How hard is that stuff when cured? Some of the products I looked at before didn't get all that hard.
 
Milnoque said:
Thanks a ton Frederic,

That's looks exactly like what I had in mind for my cab. How hard is that stuff when cured? Some of the products I looked at before didn't get all that hard.
Click to expand...

It's harder than the other DIY products but not as hard as the commercially applied stuff.

It's "softness" allows it to contort a little when banged and abraded and because of that it lasts a very long time.

This is the same reason why you can bend a piece of mild steel into a shape of some kind, but tool steel (screwdriver tips for example) just break off when torqued to hard - tool steel is far stronger, but very brittle as compared to mild steel which yields sooner but bends instead of snapping.

That applies to most things - the stronger it is, the more brittle it is. So if strong, it will resist, and resist, and resist then just break off on ya.

The commercially applied stuff is made mostly of a two part resin with a textured media sprayed in at the same time - plastic chips, recycled glass chips, tiny tiny stones, etc.

Most of the roll-on stuff use recycled tire "dust" which is what gives it the soft feeling. Durafix uses the smallest size "dust" particles it seems which gives it a smoother surface that snags less - a key factor when dragging engine blocks into the truck bed (or bouncing your amp cabinet off doorways and catching door hinges after removing the door).

All of this stuff comes off if you abuse it - even the commercially applied stuff. Durability depends on what you do with it. I've found that the durabak takes far more abuse than the other DIY brands and is at least on par with the commercial stuff, and far cheaper than the commercial stuff.

But then again, what always ruins these different liners for me is the dragging of engine blocks into the bed after craning them onto the tailgate. See, my engine crane, while it can lift really heavy engines with ease, has a short arm so I have to drag them in and out so the crane can reach them. That dragging is what pushes any liner substance to it's limits on my truck.

My pickup bed is also a dumper via hydraulics that I added, and I somewhat regularly haul metal scrap, rocks, pea gravel, termite-infested firewood, and so on, and while the wood isn't an issue the sharp edges of all the metal stuff and the gravel always damages the liners. If I were to remove those things by hand or with a shovel I probably would have less if an issue but who wants to shovel out 3500lb of tiny rocks when you can just pull a lever and stand next to it coffee in hand :)

I gave up on liners completely, and just spray a coat of rustoleum black after any loads of this kind. 4 minutes and it's done. But, when I was into the liner thing, the Durabak lasted the longest by far even with all the abuse I gave it - and abuse it I did.
 
I've used paints like rustoleum and they work but scuff and scrape pretty easy.

There is (or was... I can't find it anymore :mad: ) a product called "Varathane in Colors" by Flecto which I've used. As far as paint goes, I don't know of anything that comes even close to it. That stuff is ridiculously hard. Way, way better than normal paints. I did some JBL's years ago and they still look good.

There's oil based paints and water based. Then there's urathane products. They are like oil based paints but different. I would try and see if there's a black colored urathane/varathane product out there as they are way harder than oil based paints.

The best paints are usually found at yacht/boating type stores. The last time I was at the one I go to they had a gallon or red paint that was $400 (!). The varathane I use around my house is $120 a gallon. But this is the best paint there is. The stuff I use always looks wet and looks brand new years later. Plus, with the best paints, you hardly use any 'cause there's so much solid in it, so I think it's worth the money.
 
Oh, I also wanted to mention that I used this project as an excuse to get a half-decent table saw.

That's not exactly true. What happened is that after making two cuts on my shitty old cheap saw with its tiny table and horribly inaccurate alignment, I got frustrated, said screw it, and got down to Home Depot and came home with something more usable.

Whaddaya know, I can now cut panels that are actually square. It's a revelation. :D
 
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