I am now finally getting around to putting down the Herculiner. I had originally planned to start this back on Friday. Now that it is Sunday, I’m a bit behind. This is due to the rust spot that had to be patched yesterday and the VERY subborn bolts that were broken off.

The first step in applying Herculiner is to clean up everything. You need a very clean (and rough) surface to apply the paint to. I used a wire wheel to scuff up the surface and then hit it with the scouring pad that was included in the Herculiner kit. The kit by the way is available at most autopart stores and costs about $90 for the kit.

The next step will be to mask off all the areas that you don’t want the coating. It is going to be very thick, and very strong. You don’t want this covering up drain holes or flowing into bolt holes. This is one of the most important steps in the process. If you get the Herculiner somewhere you don’t want it, getting it off will be difficult.

For the holes I used silicone hole plugs. These things are typically used in Powder Coating situations where you don’t want powder getting into holes. Nothing sticks to silicone (except silicone), so hopefully I can just yank the plugs out of the holes and remove the herculiner sitting on them. We will see… but so far this is the easiest solution.

The application of Herculiner is fairly straight forward, but this stuff is pretty thick! Its not going to be like normal paint, as it has chunks of rubber in it. Using a paint brush you first go after all the corners and hard to reach areas. Then using the roller, you apply a thin coat. It should be thin, almost transparent. It would be wise to thin the Herculiner with Xylene for this first coat (I however did not).

The first coat needs to set for 1 to 4 hours. So I think I will work on something else while it is setting.