Today, I installed my boot rubber mat.
A trivial job, but I'll share my work anyway.
Why:
I have a utility with a dark grey liner in the boot. Right after the first transport of an 8 Kg "Böller" (saluting gun) the liner had the first ugly scratches, although I had strapped the thing quite well. The scratches might be normal for the use case. But the dark liner has only a dark surface but is bright inside. So any damage of the surface, even if very light, will be very visible. So I decided to install a rubber mat.
I bought a so-called SBR rubber mat, which is soft and heavy and can take a beating. But when you unwrap it, it stinks like hell, and it literally takes months to go away. I bought it in mid June and had to take it out onto the balcony where it has been in the rain and sun ever since. And now the smell has subsided to a "normal" level.
It is 3mm thick and 130cm x 100cm which is sufficient for a utility boot.I paid 28 € including shipping here:
https://www.gummimatte.online/
That's the raw mat on the boot.You can see how soft it is and will thus stay flat after a while:
View attachment 7824055
This job is of course a Makita party, as usual:
View attachment 7824056
First thing was to remove the rails - I thought.
But later I saw that you can remove the liner by just lifting it over the rails.
But it definitely helped as I wasn't sure yet whether to mount the rails directly over the rubber or trim it to fit around the rails. After I removed them, it was clear that cutting is better, since the rails are recessed, and thus the rubber in the indentations would have been crumpled.
You need a T45 bit for the screws.
BTW: right to the Makita you see the scratches in the liner which are very clear visible due to the bright inside material of the liner. And the scratches are really not deep.
View attachment 7824057
The bare surface without rails:
View attachment 7824058
I traced the shape like this. A not too sharp pencil is a good choice as its reflections show up well on the black.
Note that the liner shape is not symmetrical. If you want a specific side of the elastic to face up, you must
place the insert the same way you placed the elastic: both upside down, or both upside up.
Here I have the bottom up for the rubber and also for the liner:
View attachment 7824059
As
@DCPU has made it the de facto standard on this forum, we always document the part numbers. Here is the part number of the liner:
View attachment 7824060
After the first rough cutting:
View attachment 7824061
Since the liner has kind of a collar on the top, the mat is still too big:
View attachment 7824062
Better so see here. The collar is about 2-3mm which has to be cut off from the mat:
View attachment 7824063
The cut is not perfect. But that's just me. Soft materials are not my forte. I'm better with steel.
However, the shape of the liner is also a bit blurry.
View attachment 7824064
