amateurhour said:
Hey I'm getting ready to paint my Richline myself and I was curious. So you're doing truck bed liner on the outside?
Can you detail your process a little bit? I was going to do liner on the inside and then paint over it and it looks like that worked out pretty well on yours for the outside so I might do that too.
Thanks!
Yeah, so I don't know if mine qualifies as a "process"....but I got the brush-on cans of rustoleum and ended up with silver, black. Ended up mixing up 2 separate cans with additional cans of rustoleum satin white and forest green. Those are the two colors.
1. Washed washed washed, degreased, rinsed, 150 gritted, rinsed, rinsed. (Had big plans to wire wheel the whole thing, but with the dents, etc, couldn't really justify the time)
2. Primed with self-etching. Even though I hadn't stripped the whole thing.
3. RUstoleum leak seal (the gutter stuff) over all rivet seams and bottom rivets on outside, then while still tacky, Rustoleum truck bed liner over that. (bedliner/leakseal also on the front v...bedliner about 2 feet back on the section that might get 'beached').
4. While that was a little tacky, brushed on the color...had to wait so it wouldn't smear. Multiple thin coats, each new one applied while tacky. I forgot the mix, but Xylene, Mineral Spirits and Penetrol probably made up 1/3 or so of the can. One gallon of the light green covered what you see plus the bottom. Pretty thick when all was said and done.
5. We had some sunny warm days, so I let it set for a long time. I put a ceramic heater underneath it to keep it warm at night...especially on the front end where everything was so thick.
Pretty happy with the result, I've got some drip marks but nothing too bad. It's dented up anyway. So the truck bedliner is on the outside of the hull, but only over the light green semi-v front at risk for beaching, as well as the rivet seams. My idea was that the penetrol/thinners would merge in a little with the bedliner.
THe dark green areas are more forest green rustoleum brush cans with some black hammered finish mixed in...maybe a little silver, I forgot. Same ratio with thinners. Between the thinners/penetrol was very forgiving and turned out ok.
I've just got to figure out the inside layout. I, in the meantime, on the inside, used the leakseal on every exposed rivet and seam, with some bedliner as above, and a little rustoleum 'undercoating' inside the rear seat, thinking it may help with sound. I may end up adding some decking, so am still working through that. I gotta tell ya, by the time I spent $12 here and there on paints, thinners, brushes, I may have considered having the entire outside rhino-lined...wouldn't have been that much more and I could have spent the time fishing.
Disclaimer: I am not a painter. I bought a $250 boat/trailer on a whim. And I got impatient. I would not present this as ideal...but for this boat that had NO leaks on leak testing, feel pretty good about my proactive efforts.
I couldn't believe I was putting holes in my boat that didn't leak. 
