We recently had the opportunity to paint a beautiful decorative metal fence for a customer in Portland. The fence was made with a nice black factory finish on it which after a few years had started to fade and rust. It was starting to look chalky and worn out from too much sun exposure. Our owners decided maybe it was time for a color change so we helped them choose a very nice brown color.
The first thing we needed to do was to remove as much of the rust from the metal as possible with chemicals or by wire brushing it. Once the rust is gone we spot primed all bare surfaces with an expensive rust inhibitive primer from Sherwin Williams. We needed to make sure we did not have any high gloss surfaces so we washed the fence with TSP to scuff it up and make sure it was completely clean.
Now the question was what type of product should we use on it? Some homeowners will try to paint something like this with a regular house paint which is not a great idea. A house paint is not made to hold up well on a metal surface and likely will not help with preventing future rust. Some people think that using an oil paint might last longer in the wet Portland weather but this may not be true. Oil paints can get very brittle in the elements after time and start to crack and fall off the surface.
We chose a product we had used previously on a large commercial project called Sher-Cryl paint. It is a latex paint that is made to go on metal and hold up under the worst weather conditions. We even had our Sherwin Williams Rep come inspect the fence to give us his opinion as we don’t always know the answers. We applied two coats to the metal fence and it turned out looking amazing. If you have any metal surfaces you need to paint outside you need to make sure you follow all the right steps to have a long lasting paint job. If you do not can can end up with a lot of peeling paint in a few years.
Feel free to contact Absolute Painting & Power Washing with any exterior painting questions and we are always happy to assist.
