Painting Help

Basically I'm fairly clueless when it comes to painting, especially anything above a rattle can job. My front bumper is already stating to show fade and rust from the salt air and a bike rack I made has just a hint of rust showing through. Each item was cleaned up with a wire wheel and brake cleaner before Rustoleum primer and krylon rust tough semi gloss was sprayed.

Keep in mind I would like to be able to do all my painting my self

Each time I felt like sandblasting might be a better way of removing all the mill scale from the metal, I'm sure this would help a lot.

Questions:
What are y'alls successful painting methods? which types of paint where used? and whats the best way to paint trailers and or axles and frames? Are there cheap/easy sandblasting or powder coating setups?


Thanks

Acetone

Acetone does help for preparing the surface. If you are looking to do a rattle can paint job, I can not stress how much primer helps. Also in the way of rattle can look for paint with the "fan" tip spray nozzle as opposed to the single hole.

As for paint that does not come in a rattle can, The harbor freight $15 spray gun works decent for about 3 paint jobs before becoming a total tird.

Powder coating - They sell home made kits, my experience has been that 1) the price of the doing it at home is damn near what someone would charge and 2) you have to have an oven big enough to bake the thing, so your bumper is not going to work.

Primer was used and the reason for using the Krylon stuff was the "fan tip".

Does brake cleaner have an ill-effect?

This is how a Kopecki paints a trailer, or other things you don't care much about but would like paint that stays on. Pressure wash, blow dry, let sit in sun a couple hours, shoot with grey primer or black rustcat. Never had any luck getting paint to stay on a trailer that's been primed. You won't get a shiney finish, but we do not get rust through or peeling problems. My $10 Harbor Freight spray gun has been used at least 20 times, still works like new.

On the flat bed for the dodge I stepped up to $40/gallon Valspar paint. This looks better than the rustcat, you can get it at Tractor Supply. It dries slow though, supposed to wait 24 hours between coats, took me 4 days to paint the bed. Too soon to really know how it holds up.

As for bumpers, we go to ford and get a quart of high dollar color matched paint, wash bumper, scratch up glossy surface with sand paper, wash again, blow dry, let sit in sun, then shoot it with actually being careful and thinner coats. This is when color matching aftermarket bumpers. This looks and hold up excellent, but is a little spendy. No problems with a pressure washer knocking it off. For your stuff I would try the Valspar, or maybe Fred knows a decent cheap black paint. Most of the cheap black paints fade fast, we've tried a bunch of them, even 2 part paints that were about $70/gallon (and it was the worst one).

I've stopped using krylon and switched to rustoleum. It seems to hold up much better. I usually wipe down area with acetone then use rustolium primer and paint. Cheap and easy.

When I redid my trailer I sandblasted it and used rustoleum primer and various brands of black spray paint. I'm sure it has faded some but no rust or flaking. The sand blaster was from tractor supply and I hate it. When it was working it worked great ( a little slow) the problem I always had was it constantly clogged up. I was using their recommended size media. Maybe I would of had better results with higher quality media?.. I would not buy another one. It was mainly a pain in the ass.

Sand blasters like to plug up from moisture in the air line. You should at least have a filter/drier in the line. It helps, but still get some trouble. It takes a lot of air to keep up. 10 cfm was not enough, stepped up to 18 cfm and that keeps up. Real media helps, I usually just screen some sand from behind the shop.

I've always heard etching primer on bare metal. Also, multiple thin coats are always better than one thick one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by eight

Sand blasters like to plug up from moisture in the air line. You should at least have a filter/drier in the line. It helps, but still get some trouble. It takes a lot of air to keep up. 10 cfm was not enough, stepped up to 18 cfm and that keeps up. Real media helps, I usually just screen some sand from behind the shop.

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Yeah, i think the humidity in the air is part of what caused the problems. I was using an inline filter/drier and their is one built into my blaster but i still constantly had issues. I was using "diamond" particle media. The packages said it could cause cancer so i figured that meant it was the good stuff??

Rustoleum Hammered finish is what I've used on axles and such, it's thicker and doesn't have a smooth surface when dried, so it's easier to get a good looking finish. Plus it's fairly tough.

The black is actually a gunmetal gray though.

Clean with degreaser then thinner, you will be amazed how much grim and crap is on there. Hell even do it twice. For a rattle can job, I like to use one coat of etching primer and maybe one coat of high build depending on the materials surface. Let that dry and do its thing for at least a day, then come back with 3-4 light coats of GOOD spray paint. Or you could skip the spray paint and go buy a decent dryer for your compressor and a cheap HVLP gun and spray 2-3 coats of a single stage like Nason (I know Fred, it's awesome stuff ;)) and you should never have a peeling issue and with practice you will get a decent gloss and minimal orange peel.

The moral of the story is prep, prep, then prep again and use something that is made to stick to bare metal before you spray color.