Painting a Rusted Balustrade

Balustrade probably installed in the 60s. Looks like someone had given it a quick going over with a bit of primer or undercoat (white, non-gloss) before we bought the house. Rust is now starting to show through the undercoat along about 80% of the balustrade.

I've got some left-over exterior self-priming paint in the right colour. I've also got some left-over 3-in-1 sealer, primer, undercoat paint.

What's my best, cheapest, and quickest option for making the balustrade look nice? I know I can't stop the rust but I'd like to hide it for aesthetics. Plan is to replace Balustrade in 5-10 years time anyway.

Any thoughts?

Is it wrought iron? you can stop the rust, but its not cheap or easy.
I find any of the End Rust product good if you follow the instructions.

If you dont want to sand back and clean try using some Phosphoric acid first.

Stopping it is (relatively) easy. Ten years is a long time.

Here are the options:

Balustrading in the era it was made was not usually made to be demountable, but if it is, or if it can be cut into sections, sleeved and bolted back together, the easiest and best solution is to send it off to be powdercoated. You should get ten years easily and while it sounds like an expensive process, it's probably as cheap as you'll get overall, and it's a lot easier than the alternative:

Otherwise: Remove all flaking paint and rust, use a rust converter (phosphoric) then paint with a suitable paint system, depending on how much you want to spend, this could start with a tar-epoxy primer... or a simple red oxide. There are plenty of products on the market, just read the manufacturer's recommendations, and remember you get what you pay for.

Removing the flaking paint can be as exciting as you like. I prefer to use a wire brush in an angle grinder, which gives hours of fun later, picking bits of steel out of your legs, and turns your jeans into a wonderfully random-frayed speckledy thing that you can sell to a RockStar for the price of new balustrading.

Cheers,

P
:D

Basically what BM said, but instead of powdercoat which isn't that durable either get it sandblasted and galvanised (it will outlast you and the house) or sandblasted and two pack epoxy primer & topcoat of choice. Probably still last longer than you.

Mick

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Originally Posted by TheOtherMick

Balustrade probably installed in the 60s. Looks like someone had given it a quick going over with a bit of primer or undercoat (white, non-gloss) before we bought the house. Rust is now starting to show through the undercoat along about 80% of the balustrade.

I've got some left-over exterior self-priming paint in the right colour. I've also got some left-over 3-in-1 sealer, primer, undercoat paint.

What's my best, cheapest, and quickest option for making the balustrade look nice? I know I can't stop the rust but I'd like to hide it for aesthetics. Plan is to replace Balustrade in 5-10 years time anyway.

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We've just done ours (similar age). Had to cut out some of the uprights and weld in new ones (they were hollow and water got inside). In hindsight, I'd rip it out and replace it with timber.

To stop rust coming through, you have to use an turps-based undercoat - one of those horrible red things. Acrylic over the top of that is ok but you need acrylic undercoat over the turps undercoat to get the acrylic top-coat to stick. Rust converter (acid) will not get rid of all the rust even if you strip it back. Plus painting it is a bloody pain because ours has little nooks and crannies you can't get normal brushes into. Hence you get drops in the paint and a stiff neck and back leaning over. Do as much as you can with a small roller.

We welded in the new bits, then stripped it back with paint stripper plus one of the water jet pump thingies. Then attacked it with wire brush in an angle grinder (wear gloves, goggles, long shirt and long pants). Took ages and didn't get it all off.

Then applied rust converter (acid).

Then undercoated two coats with White Knight True Bite Anti Corrosive Universal Metal Primer - that's a nice grey acrylic which is ok to apply, and stops most of the remaining rust coming through.

Then it stayed like that for about 6 months (according to instructions it's ok to leave it unfinished)

My wife then used White Knight Rust Guard Epoxy Enamel (white gloss) and she found it extremely difficult to get a clean finish because the stuff dries so fast.

Then where the rust came through, we used White Knight Rust Guard Metal Primer (red turps-based paint). Not as nice to apply as the grey acrylic stuff but stops the rust marks coming through.

My wife decided she hated the White Knight white enamel and switched to Dulux and found it was a dream to apply in comparison. This project took about 6 man weeks I'd say. Not worth it.

We tried spray cans but the amount of drift and wastage was too much to continue.

If I was to do paint it again, after stripping and rust converting, I'd start with spraying turps-based anti-rust undercoat using an HVLP gun, then I'd HVLP spray a Dulux anti-rust top coat. I've just bought an HVLP gun and there is little wasted paint/drift.

An alternative is to pain the balustrade a colour that doesn't show rust, e.g. rust coloured! or black. Around where we live, a lot of the 60's houses have steel window frames and a few houses have them painted black and it looks good.

Thanks for the responses,

Unfortunately it's not that easy to just unbolt (cast into patio slab) so there could be a bit of extra work to fit a sleeve or something if I was to go the powdercoat or hot-dip gal option.

For the work (and cost) involved, I may end up just replacing it sooner rather than later.

Got our first child due any day now as well which will no doubt put the brakes on the home reno work.