KeyserSoSay
Adventurer
I too have done a few small projects with the Raptor product, and plan to coat my entire van with it. I've also done prep, paint, and undercoating professionally at a truck bed/trailer manufacturing company- just as a point of reference. wjeeper's post here is dead-on and should be read 3 times by anyone thinking of taking on the a DIY bed liner job. Spraying the coating is easier than paint and much more forgiving in coverage, and you don't need to do any of it in a spray room as little specs of dust will never be seen again. On the other hand, prep work is as critical as if you were spraying a glitter candy apple and 9 layers of clear coat, most DIY folks just don't realize how critical a properly prepared surface is the longevity of any coating. Bed liner does not adhere well to bare metal, a good hardened paint or primer is best as a substrate. I recommend painting a quick coat of paint in the same color you intend to Raptor line with, especially up in all the nooks and cranny that may be difficult to get an even coverage with (backs of the bumpers etc) wjeeper's tip about shooting a thinned coat of Raptor for color coverage and then another thicker coat for thickness and texture is great advice.
I like that the Raptor lining comes in the liter cans- and that you can make it any color you want with pretty idiot-proof mixing. I recommend starting with a small project first, and learning the process of mixing, quick cleaning your gun, spraying new can, repeat. This will help you know how much you can spray in a given time frame, and work out any bugs you have in your process. You'll also start the bigger project with much more confidence and understand what your sprayer will do at different pressures and different distances. You'll also get a feel for how much time you have to remove masking, an important element of a good job is removing your masking at just the right time-since-sprayed. For a large job like an entire vehicle, it's critical you have at least two people- one guy who's only job is to mix up the next can at the right intervals, this makes things go exponentially smoother. It is also a good idea to have one person who's job it is to manage your airline and make sure it never touches your truck. Raptor liner is best sprayed from a cheap $20 harbor freight sprayer (that's what the interweb told me and my experience supports that) I bought two but have not had to use the second one yet- but on any big job like a full vehicle it's worth the extra $20 to have a standby if something happens. Better yet, just hand your mixer-buddy the empty sprayer and have him hand you the other sprayer filled and ready to go. He can do a quick clean and refill it (since Raptor liner is a two-part chemically hardened product, you'll want to at least occasionally clean your gun as you go or risk having problems towards the end of your spray) the quicker you can lay down all your spray the better so you don't loose focus or miss your window on when to remove your masking.
I don't remember the quantity I figured I'd need to do my whole van, but I do remember that it should run about $650 worth of Raptor liner kits, my plan is to buy at least $700 of the stuff and if I have some left over I'll either find another project to spray, or sell the left overs on E-bay. I don't know how long the stuff can store, but I do a lot of Duracoat, Cerekote, and KG gun-coat and have found it best to start each project with fresh paint and I don't try to stockpile and store it anymore.
One thing I've found is that you can modularize the job a little easier than with paint without any negative effect or noticeable difference. For example, you could coat the roof of your van to the drip gutter- take a day off, mask the roof, and then do another section. Just from my experience painting other vehicles, I'd say the roof is best done in one single thick coat ( say from front to back). Any time I'm painting a vehicle (or horse trailer or whatever) I always do a dry run from start to finish to make sure my spray plan jives with reality (of climbing on and off the roof for example, or spraying from a scaffolding)
Wow I'm long winded. Sorry, but I hope and expect some small part of this post might be helpful to someone reading this though.
