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Gideon
 
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My son repainted about 20' of wrought iron railing plus several
8' tall wrought iron ceiling support sections a few years ago
for his Eagle Scout project. I've got a good portable sandblaster,
but a couple of boys using large 120v drills with wire brushes
managed to prep the railing relatively quickly. I'd estimate that
about 25% of the material had to be wire-brushed to remove bad
paint and/or rust. Much more and we would have considered
using the sandblasting equipment.

He got the paints for free from Home Depot (thanks!), but we
would have gone with spray paint even if the cost were coming
out of our pockets. I've found that low cost spray paints work
very well IF you wire brush very well and you spot paint the bare
metal with spray primer.

Rustoleum is a very good product, but relatively expensive, especially
in spray cans. A lot depends upon what sort of trade-offs you are
willing to make. Which is more important - your time or your money?
Spray paint saves time; a brush and roller save money.

If you use spray primer and/or spray paint, be sure to purchase a
couple of the detachable handle and trigger devices. These black
pistol grip devices easily snap on and off of a standard spray paint
can and when you squeeze the trigger then a lever pushes down on
the can's spray button. Two such devices probably cost about $3-$4
and they help prevent finger fatigue and they allow you to get much
better spraying results from cans. The Krylon version is called a
"Snap and Spray Handle".

Good luck,
Gideon

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J Kelly wrote in message ...
The wrought iron railing on my front steps and porch is getting pretty
rusty and has some paint chipped off. What is the best way to repaint
this? Should I attempt to remove all the old paint, or just get the
loose stuff off and clean up the rusty spots? This is about 30 feet
of railing, so wire brushing the whole thing would take ages. Also,
what type of paint should I use? Rustoleum spray? Or is there
something better. I don't want to repeat this project in a few years,
looking for a permanent solution. The railing has been removed from
the porch to repair the concrete so I can work on it a bit before it
gets reinstalled if that makes any difference on how I should proceed.

Thanks