In article ,
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Steve, thank you for your reply. I left out some details. This gate is
wrought iron. Two 7 foot posts at about 200 lbs and two gates, six feet
high by five feet wide at about 300 lbs. It was bought at an antique
store and when painted it will decorate a small park in south east
Pennsylvania. It is quite massively built, thick metal bars and flat
work. Because of how it is built sand blasting seems the way to go to
get off the rust. I thought at a minimum this was something that needed
to be done. The people I am doing this for are in a rush to get it in
place. What could be the life of the paint job if it was powder coated
verses going with a good oil base paint?


I painted the steel stringers for the outside stairway on
my shop with a water based acrylic Rustoleum primer and
topcoat about 10 years ago. These stairs are 100 feet from
salt water. They don't show *any* sign of rusting yet and
the topcoat (dark green) is still glossy. I was a diehard
oil-based enamel guy, but this stuff has convinced me that
water based paint can be as good or better than oil based.

Rustoleum's instructions say it can be applied over tight
mill scale or light rust, but it ain't so, as I found out
the first time I used it. The stringers were sand blasted
to bare metal and painted with a brush.

I'm pretty sure it was the Rustoleum 5200 system, available
from Grainger. If you're interested I'll see if I can find
the cans and make sure.

Ned Simmons