On Tue, 09 May 2006 13:15:16 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

You might want to go over it and remove all old paint and use a chromate
type primer on it though.

Where are you going to even _find_ a chromate primer these days ? Apart
from being horribly toxic, they're also far from the best choice for
steel.

A fire escape ought to have been galvanised to begin with. If it wasn't,
then it needs a good coat of zinc-based primer (Davids 182, or some
others) onto clean bare metal.