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Painting aluminum boat hull with truck bed liner
- Thread starter Mako22
- Start date
hopper
Senior Member
I would be interested in that as well. Urethanes can be tricky to bond to Aluminum without good prep and proper primer.
Are you having it done or DIY??
treemanjohn
Banned
It's going to be very heavy if done properly
PappyHoel
Senior Member
Party pooper...I was all ready to go try it, but i think your right. It might sink a john boat fully loaded.
Mr Bya Lungshot
BANNED LUNATIC FRINGE
We tried our best to sink our Sears Gamefisher one time. Pulled the plug, flipped it, put ten of us in it. The darn thing wouldn’t go down for nothing. It did go to the rail of the boat but that was it.
Best jon boat ever!!! Never painted it though.
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treemanjohn
Banned
You can use Rust-Oleum with their nonskid additive. It's leaves a great surface. Just don't use a dark color because it'll be hotter that Hades
swamp hunter
Senior Member
Watch a Hard shell finish unless it flexes.
Alum. Flexes , if the paint don't ...well it's not good.
Fiberglass boats are painted with flex.
Alum. Flexes , if the paint don't ...well it's not good.
Fiberglass boats are painted with flex.
little rascal
Senior Member
Gluvet won't last real long on the bottom. Look up steel flex, frog spit or some of the epoxy's for duck boats and air boat bottoms. I did the bottom of my big duck boat in steelflex a lot of years ago, it's still there mostly and still pretty slick.
Most of these product do not add as much weight as you might think. About 11# per gal. pre-cure. Some of the weight leaves as the liquid evaporates during the curing.
I have got a quart can of DuraBak polyurethane I didn't use when coating an aluminum casting deck I built for CC boat. Can and all weighs less than 3#.
I have got a quart can of DuraBak polyurethane I didn't use when coating an aluminum casting deck I built for CC boat. Can and all weighs less than 3#.
southernman13
Senior Member
All that stuff is junk. Line x spray in is the only way to go. It’s expensive but do it once and done. It doesn’t get hot either. I’ve built several aluminum airboats that I’ve had the front deck and floor boards sprayed with line x. It’s worth it. Mines 10 years old and still like new. Don’t waste your time and money the other stuff will peel and crack. Then you have a real mess
southernman13
Senior Member
At least that’s been my experience from what I’ve used and others I know.
bassboy1
Senior Member
What is your purpose for trying this? You've mentioned 3 different products that all have completely different uses, so it would probably be best to figure out what you want to achieve before going further.
The purpose is to seal a leaky riveted Jon boat
bassboy1
Senior Member
Definitely avoid bedliner for that application.
If you decide on gluvit, it needs to be applied to the inside. Steelflex is designed for the outside. Both are decent products.
Have you put a few inches of water in the boat to determine where the leaks are? It's a heck of a lot easier to repair a few seeping rivets than it is to prep and seal an entire hull.
swamp hunter
Senior Member
Yes it is..They even make Kits for that and a Rivet gun is cheap.
Them Specialized Paints and Coatings ain,t cheap either....
Them Specialized Paints and Coatings ain,t cheap either....
Yep have reset the rivets before and they always go back to leaking. Lots of good reports online about using bed liner to seal a hull.
bassboy1
Senior Member
Can't reset a rivet. Have to replace them.
The whole point of rivets is they expand to fill the hole. Completely, no voids whatsoever. You can actually grind both heads off an installed rivet, and they'll still hold the material, and be watertight.
As they are being installed, the whole rivet expands, and after it has completely filled the hole up, then the head begins to form. If one has worked loose, you can't reset it properly - the formed head prevents the rest from getting compressed enough to expand in the hole. By trying to reset a rivet, you are just smashing the head tighter. Yes, it'll seal the leak for a short time, but because it isn't completely filling the hole, it'll flex and loosen up in short order.
Replacing solid rivets is dead easy. Ideally, you'd want to drill out to the next size, but if your boat is already made with 1/4" rivets, that's not doable considering rivets larger than that don't really exist.
Remove the old rivet - can be drilled through, but you run the risk of being slightly off center and egging the hole - I prefer to grind or sand the head off, then knock the rivet through with a punch.
Then, stick your new rivet in the hole, hold a bucking bar (can be as simple as a small sledgehammer head) on the backside, and hit the existing head with a air hammer. The only special tool you need is a rivet set (under $10).
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/pages/ha/rivets/topcanrivetsets.php
Rivets themselves are fairly cheap, too.
https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/hapages/solidalumrivets2.php
Or, even cheaper to get a box of 100 instead of a full pound.
https://www.mcmaster.com/catalog/124/3411
For under $25 with shipping, you can replace any leaking rivets properly. If you don't have an air hammer, you can get one that will do the job for $15 at Harbor Freight.
If it is just one or two rivets drill or grind out and have the hole welded.
