By Alan Bullington

A roll on bed liner looks very much like a far more expensive professional spray on liner but costs less by quite a bit. It’s not as simple as just rolling it on though, and the right steps must be followed. Following are tips for installing a do it yourself bed liner so it stays put and lasts for a long period.

1. Get plenty of paint.

Professional spray on liners consist of up to 5 gallons of paint. That thickness of paint probably is not possible with what you can put on, but the often recommended 1 gallon is probably too little. You need at least an extra quart to cover a full size pickup be and an extra gallon will be even better.

2. Rolling produces a texture like spraying.

It would seem that spray liner would surely look better. Really though, bed liner paint that you roll on yourself settles as it dries and the application marks disappear as the paint settles. During that process of drying, the roll on coating loses all the roller or brush marks and the finished coating looks just as if it was sprayed in placed. So you give up little or nothing in appearance by using a roller and you can skip cleaning the spray equipment.

3. Use the proper cleaner.

No kind of paint will stick to old grease and wax. That’s why you simply must use a solvent cleaner to wipe down the bed as an early step in the project. The solvent can be found right in your auto parts store. Get it and use it or else the paint likely will not stick. Sanding won’t remove oil, grease and wax either. Sanding just grinds the grime into the old bed paint. Use a solvent cleaner early.

4. Scratches are what you want.

After a complete cleaning the bed surface must be sanded. But no special fine sanding is needed. In fact, you just use very coarse, aggressive sanding materials. Since what you want to have is a very scratchy surface to help the paint stick. Don’t worry. The thick, textured paint covers scratch marks completely. So, scratch the surface to be painted and skip the fine sand work completely.

5. Application is the easy part.

The real key to success with a roll on liner is surface preparation. The actual application could not be simpler. The paint is almost gel-like in nature so it goes on so easy and covers so well, it’s actually fun to use. You can put it all on in just one session and then throw away the roller and brushes and you’re done. Just get the preparation work done right so the paint stays on.

Key to a lasting roll on bed liner is clearly proper surface preparation. No one step of the right preparation work is hard. However you must do the steps properly or the paint likely will peel and leave you worse off than you were before you put the paint on in the first place. Get the surface in good shape and installing the paint is easy as could be.

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