Iron Armor

[tucsonjwt]

I painted my truck bed with Iron Armor about one month ago and then installed a Pendaliner I got used on top of that coating. I thought I would post my experience with it.

Harbor Freight had Iron Armor on sale for about $40 per gallon so I ended up buying 2 gallons and 2 rattle cans. I also bought a pack of dense foam 6" rollers and frame from Home Depot.

Here is how it went:

I sanded down the bed with a pad sander and a hand sanding block. I used 40 grit and 100 grit sandpaper. My bed has a lot of big dents in the floor from hauling and dumping large rocks use in landscaping in the neighborhood, so this floor was never going to be pretty.

I used a 2' chip brush from Harbor Freight to paint under the top rails and in the corners and around the edges of the wheel wells. I did not thin the Iron Armor so it went on very thick - too thick. This resulted in not getting very much coverage from the Iron Armor. I switched to the rollers and the coverage was lighter, but the roller left thin hair like strings on the roller, which became very messy. I used two coats of the roller to get adequate coverage.

I used the rattle cans on the tailgate and on the ends of the tailgate and the upright areas of the ends of the box. I also sprayed the tailgate hardware.

I waited about 3 weeks before I installed the Pendaliner. It installed with only 4 large toggle type fasteners which clamped against the underside of the top rail.

If I were to do this again, I would thin the Iron Armor and use a 2" and 3" or 4' chip brush and not use a roller. I have read reviews which described using a ceiling texture hopper style paint gun to apply this stuff. I have no good experience with using a power sprayer, so I would not take that route.

I will say that the rattle cans produced a very thin spray and required 4 coats to begin to get what I consider adequate coverage. Also, the rattle cans had to be shaken every few seconds to keep the nozzle from spitting out a big glob of coating. Since I only used the rattle cans on the tailgate (which would be covered by the Pendaliner tailgate cover) and the rear corner upright areas, I think the thin coating was OK. However, I think thinned out Iron Armor painted on with a chip brush would have been a better choice even in these areas.

I removed the stainless steel Silverado tailgate band and put small machine screws in the mounting holes in the tailgate. I could not find a smooth head bolt small enough (like a carriage bolt) so I just used a slot head screw.

[tucsonjwt]

The Pendaliner was the over the rail type, so I coated the tops of the rails and front lip to stop abrasion. I don't have pics of the Pendaliner installed - I will post those later. Here are a couple more pics of the tailgate area.

[tucsonjwt]

Here is the Pendaliner installed over the Iron Armor.