I spent a lot of time at Home Depot, this morning, contemplating what color I'll settle for the rock sliders.

I spoke to a guy working in the paint section, trying to get some feedback about the closest color to bare metal; Still couldn't get a good feel on what would really work so I ended up picking a few rattle cans of matte metallic nickel, flat black enamel, and a metallic gun metal grey.

I went home and did a few test sprays on a big cheater pipe I had sitting around and I finally settled for Gun Metal Grey.

The first stage of prep; I used some non-TSP cleaner and a scotch brite and got to work on the weld spots and scuffed up all the surfaces areas; Rinse, wash, and repeat several times:


I took another look with the painted cheater bar next to my scrubbed rock sliders for a final look and definitely wanted to go with Gun Metal Grey:


I really would have preferred to keep it bare but I didn't want to use Penetrol, clear coat only on bare metal, or use some Chrome paint. I take one last look at how amazing they look in bare steel:


I grabbed my heat gun and warmed up the steel to provide a better adhesion surface/environment for the primer as well as the base paint and topcoat later on.

A few shake, rattle, and spray cans of primer later, I took a break and let the primer settle in:


I took a deep breath and hoped that the Gun Metal will look as good on the rock sliders as it did on the cheater pipe and went to work.

A couple of coats later, I stood back and took it all in, and was totally satisfied that I went with this color instead of a matte black


I went the extra step and added a matte topcoat/clear to protect the paint a bit further. I'm glad I went with a matte for the topcoat as I think that if it were glossy then I wouldn't have acheived the look I wanted:


I'm going to let these settle overnight and cure. My plan for tomorrow is to weld these guys on and use the matte black enamel to color over frame and mounting plate after the weld job's completed.