So I just bought a new Dive-X Cuda 400 painted in a nice Smooth Red. After a couple of dives I noticed that it was starting to get pretty scratched up from being dragged on the beach and general underwater abuse. I had seen that some folks applied truck bed liner to the nose of their scoots and that it looked pretty good. I brought it to Rhino Liner in Everett but they kept putting the work off so I decided to do it myself. Here is t step by step of what I did.
I started off by masking off the line that I wanted the paint to end. I used Frog Tape from Home Depot because some experimentation with regular masking tape was not very successful as the truck bed liner tends to eat the tape and bleed through the line.
- Frog Tape
I then scuffed the area with emery cloth.
I removed the tape, washed the area with Goof Off followed by soap and water then alcohol and allowed it to dry. I then replaced the tape and pressed it very firmly to the tube.
- Masked and Sanded
A very important part of the masking process is to ensure you get NO paint on the zinc thingy in the indentation at the nose of the scoot. The zinc acts as a sacrificial anode and MUST be well electrically connected to the scoot (through the center bolt) and to the water. If you mess this up the steel fasteners will corrode and general badness will ensue.
- Anode Masking
I then assembled and suspended the scoot with a chord from the eve of my garage so that I could spin it while painting. Having the battery in the scoot helps as it lends more inertia to the spinning scoot and thus reduces wobble and keeps the speed constant.
- Suspended Scoot
The next step was to mask the rest of the scooter body with paper to protect it from overspray. I doubled the paper as the spray is very aggressive in how it penetrates and tends to soak through a single layer.
- Fully Masked Scoot
I chose Rust-Oleum truck bed lining. The choice was simply because it was all I could find.
- Spray Can of Truck Bed Liner
After shaking the can for several minutes I spun the scoot, held the can about 18” away and applied the first coat. I looked for runs and simply lightly brushed them away with the edge of a paper towel. After 2 min I applied a second coat and just lived with runs. They will shrink as they dry. After waiting another 10 min I applied a thin coat to the underside as it tends to take the most abuse.
- Coated
After an hour I removed the masking and admired the results.
- Unmasked
- Sharp Line
I then brought the scoot inside where it will cure for 72 hrs.
DAve
