Experience on bed liner paint

RangeDrive

Observer
Has anyone had any experience with painting your entire van with a bed liner like monstaliner or raptor liner? I recently bought a 87 E350 Falcon Camper, and the paint has seen better days. I was thinking of monstaliner due to ease of application and price. Should I paint the roof with it as well or use rv roof paint?
 

polomasta

Member
Has anyone had any experience with painting your entire van with a bed liner like monstaliner or raptor liner? I recently bought a 87 E350 Falcon Camper, and the paint has seen better days. I was thinking of monstaliner due to ease of application and price. Should I paint the roof with it as well or use rv roof paint?

I plan on using raptor liner on my bus soon. Check out this video on YouTube where a guy does his whole van

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

whith

Active member
I used Raptor on the roof and hood of my E350 when I had it and it turned out great. A little practice on dialing in the texture is prudent but it’s totally doable.
 

RangeDrive

Observer
I used Raptor on the roof and hood of my E350 when I had it and it turned out great. A little practice on dialing in the texture is prudent but it’s totally doable.

We are planning on rolling it on, just for ease of application, we will be applying outdoors, and we don’t own a air compressor
 

Raul

Adventurer
I’ve done the whole van with Monstaliner. Quite pleased with it. I didn’t do the roof because it was not bad, but I’ll do it when time comes. 6E11F3B6-1187-48CA-95DD-C4C35A79FAA1.jpeg

Build thread in signature.
 

eporter

Adventurer
Check out Pangle’s ambo. The guy’s a pro at this!
My Perfect Ambulance Platform?
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...fect-Ambulance-Platform?.193658/&share_type=t

81d850a13188268c132e0331fa05b1e6.jpg
 

Pinnacle Campers

Chateau spotter
I would advise against doing such large areas like a vehicle, by hand vs spraying.
If you do so, work with very small sections at a time.
Its a real bummer when the foam roller starts coming apart leaving little chunks in your texture and you cant get the texture consistent because the coating has already "kicked off" before you have finished covering the panel. Maybe do the roof (by hand to get a feel for it?
Compressors are easy to find, borrow or rent, highly recommended, and the undercoating guns are cheap, https://amzn.to/2JvaZx2 and can be bought with the coating kit.
Page 11 of my I'M BATVAN build thread below has pics of a cabinet sprayed with Raptor, the Trekker vans thread has info about spraying cabinets with monstraliner FWIW.
 

Pangle

Wanderer
I have done several ambo builds with the Monsta and overall I like the results. Like Brian just said you CANT be to concerned with absolute perfection. Monsta is great generally but it does like to "set up" rather quickly and you can get the bits of roller in the paint and there seems to be no way of knowing how or when the roller bits will start to break off. Also because it sets up quickly I fell rushed to get it done and the results can diminish. All of mine look great from about 10ft but once you get closer you can see roller marks, runs, chunks etc. But for me i dont really mind. The vehicle is designed to be tough and is going to get scratched and imperfections anyway, so i dont mind some imperfections. I like that it does not scratch easily, hail does not bother it, and it looks rugged. I imagine if you had a large enough garage where you could do it all in a climate controlled environment your results would be better. The ambos are so big they do not fit in the garage so even on a perfect day you will still have some element of wind, and bugs also seem to be attracted to it.

The first three all have monsta on the cabs and fronts of boxes, on the last one the monsta is on the side of the box
 

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Raul

Adventurer
I agree. The main advice I’ll give, besides following the instructions is to get twice as many rollers as you think you may need. Once you mix the paint, you can not wait to get refills.

Pangle, since you have done several vehicles, have you tried different type of rollers?
 

RangeDrive

Observer
I agree. The main advice I’ll give, besides following the instructions is to get twice as many rollers as you think you may need. Once you mix the paint, you can not wait to get refills.

Pangle, since you have done several vehicles, have you tried different type of rollers?

Agreed, we are going to buy way too many rollers, that way we can change them often
 

grampswrx

Observer
Ill echo what others said. Gets lots of rollers, get lots of the handles for the rollers and multiple trays to put the liner in. If you’re doing the whole vehicle, having several people helping would be great with each person taking a section. You could also get smaller units if the stuff, like quarts instead of gallons so you don’t have too much setting up at once.

I did a van yesterday and the second coat had a lot more imperfections and I used 4 rollers. That was just for the lower rockers.

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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Pangle

Wanderer
Some other things... Ill echo what everyone has said about rollers get a bunch, also get some of the 2" ones for the tight areas. Just like any job its only as good as your prep which is something I hate and will shortcut sometimes, like not taking off the mirrors, door window rubbers, etc. Also getting multiple rollers is good advice also, as you're going through the stuff will get on your hands which will stick to the roller which will cause probs. Also make sure you stick to a "plan" like do the hood first or door first and get one good complete coat and dont touch it again until you make your way back around for the second coat.

I do not paint the entire boxes in Monsta. Ill usually get a very high grade exterior paint color matched to the monsta. You could never tell but on the tan one and one of the gray rigs I rolled over the monsta in some light areas with the paint to fill in minor imperfections.

edit: I have not tried different rollers, just because their roller is what gives it the texture.. I would be curious tho
 

kcernest

Observer
For those that have sprayed this stuff, what cfm did you run and what size compressor did you have? I'm planning on spraying my short bus with one of these but I'm concerned a 40gallon 120v compressor will be too small.
 

Vandit

Observer
For those that have sprayed this stuff, what cfm did you run and what size compressor did you have? I'm planning on spraying my short bus with one of these but I'm concerned a 40gallon 120v compressor will be too small.
I did my 24" fiberglass high top a few weeks back with Raptor Liner. I used my Ingersoll Rand 20 gal compressor that runs about 5.5 cfm. Raptor recommends 40-60psi and I think I settled in at 65psi after some testing. My 20 gal did fine to get the job done although my IR has a 100% duty cycle with synthetic oil so I never really worry about it. However, I don't really remember the compressor running all that often throughout the process. While painting I had to frequently reposition the ladder, mix the next bottle, etc so there's plenty of opportunities for the compressor to stay ahead. With a 40 gal I would think you would have no problem.

One side note about spraying...don't take any short cuts with the taping and masking prep work. When spraying this stuff spits everywhere.
 

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