Hey MTH, I read the thread where you discussed your luck with JCR, and honestly I was completely sure I was going to get that bumper until I read it, haha. That got me thinking, would I really have the time to mount the bumper twice and dismount it once? I'm not so sure...
For the finish issue, Is it really worthit to powder coat it? If I HAVE to finish it, I guess black it is... Should I use those can thingies? Plastidip or something...
And for the record, I don't hate JCR or anything. Their stuff looks fantastic and the welds really are almost artfully done.
I just don't like the idea of selling it unfinished, but then also not allowing any returns once it's finished. Especially when the product takes a significant amount of effort to "test fit." At least not without making that REALLY obvious on the website. More obvious than it is now. JMHO.
I just had my JCR rails Line-Xed. (Literally just had it done . . . picked them up this morning.) They look great--but it was $330 for the Line-X. The rails themselves were $400-and-something to get delivered. So I'm at about $800 for rails. Pretty spendy given that I need to handle the finish myself and can expect no refund if there's a defect in the rails.
That said, the rustoleum rattlecan bedliner will do great on anything that doesn't see any traffic. I've had it on my lightbar and my door hinges for months and months and months now. There's little (or maybe no) fade, and when I spot a random flake or spot where the metal shows through I just hit it with some touch up. That's the cheapest way to go--a few cans of self-etching primer, some rattlecan bedliner, and you're all set.
JCR does have a pretty good section on their website for finishing their stuff. (See
here.)
Honestly though, for what you're spending on a bumper, I'd want it finished right. Sure, the rattlecan will work, but for how many years? I can tell you that one or two years seems okay so far . . . but I don't know about five. And if it doesn't hold up, that means you're going to have a heck of a stripping project down the line.
So if I were getting a bumper, I'd look into Line-X or powdercoating, or one of the high-end DIY bedliner kits like Monstaliner, Raptorliner, etc. Of course, you've got to factor the cost of that as well as the time involved into the overall cost of the bumper.
With three toddlers in my household, there was just no way I was going to get the time to do a quality DIY job on my rails with Monstaliner or any similar product. I also knew I was going to be stepping on my rails every single time I got in and out of the jeep, so the finish had to be rock solid. So Line-X it was.