From cleaning to masking
I continued preparing the van for the black bedliner. I showed the cleaner in a spray bottle and explained the wipe-down I was doing before sanding. By the next walkthrough, I said the degreasing was done and showed the paper and blue tape around the areas I planned to coat.
The appearance was already very different from the starting-point walkaround. Paper ran along the body above the lower trim, while blue tape defined the boundary between the coating area and the white panels I wanted to keep.
An early plan to use a roller
In this update my plan was to apply the bedliner with a roller so I would have less overspray to think about. I walked around the front and sides to show the masking, then described sanding as the next job.
That roller plan is part of how the project developed. I later switched to spraying the initial coats and returned to a roller when I wanted to improve the evenness of the finish. Today’s record catches the earlier decision, before those changes.
The preparation kept growing
The long trim sections were only part of the masking. I also worked around the front bumper, lights and hood area. Seeing it all taped up made the scale of the job much clearer than the first introduction had.
I still had work ahead before applying the coating. In the next day’s update I returned to the prepared surfaces after unexpected rain, then moved through the remaining preparation and spraying. The main project story follows that change from the original roller idea to the sprayed and rolled result.
Where I finished
This was a preparation day. The van was taking on its paper-and-blue-tape look, and my application plan was still evolving.
Read the complete project story for the wider sequence and related product notes.