Truck bed coating on wood

Dave Black

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Central PA
I am making some flight cases for my church to store audio cables in. They will mostly live on a cart that will get wheeled around the stage, but at times they will get thrown in a truck and hauled around. I was thinking about using a truck bed coating to paint the boxes. I was looking around online and it seems that most people aren't terribly happy with the DIY bed coatings, but this application isn't as demanding as a truck bed. Any thoughts? I was looking at this
http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=368
 
Hmm...interesting idea. I don't have any idea how well it would hold up, but it seems it should work pretty well. Are you also using aluminum on the edges like the typical flight case?

I've used vinyl flooring on road* cases with good success. (Black might not be real easy to find, but I was able to get some...this was years ago.) As I recall, it was less expensive that the standard Formica or indoor/outdoor carpet that you see on the commercial cases. I've also simply used black enamel paint, and it also held up remarkably well, even after thousands of miles and hundreds of stage setups. It's easy to touch up, too.





* I call 'em road cases because we never flew anywhere in the band. :p
 
They won't have aluminum edges or corners like regular cases, these are being made on the cheap. They are made of 3/4 birch ply and I mainly wanted to keep the wood from getting chipped up. They probably won't get much abuse.
 
Yeah, in that case Formica or sheet vinyl wouldn't work. I'd think the truck bed coating would be just fine, especially with a decent primer between it and the wood.

I'd suggest using a router with a roundover bit to ease all the exposed edges and corners. Also, I'd suggest putting some type of feet on the cases to keep the bottoms from getting too beat up. Either rubber or metal would work.
 
Take a look at the Duplicolor® brand - the one with the kevlar in it. I used it a couple years ago on a small yard trailer, and it's holding up very well (on metal, at least. I've never tried it on wood).
 
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