galvanized steel painting
hi – looking for advice on someone who could strip and *correctly* prime and repaint a galvanized steel structure in our backyard. it was incorrectly painted previously so its flaking off now… appreciate any thoughts on who might do this (i have reached out to metal shops without luck.)
oliver_nyc
in Exteriors 2 years and 11 months ago
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andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
And follow the link dork posted.
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
Our good friend Dork mentions “flatners”; what he means is that you are using semi gloss or low lustre paints. Many paints and urethanes are made as a full gloss and the flattners are added to make them semi or flat or whatever in between.
There is someone out there who can do this but the problem is finding them. a couple of things about the language barrier: the people who have done this will have been here long enough to have learned the language at least so they can talk about what they do for a living. I mean they have been here and working for at least ten or fifteen years. Their English may not be perfect. Once you find someone who speaks good enough english to converse with and they tell you they have done this, it will be up to you to know the questions to ask to ascertain whether he or she is who they say they are. What I would do is learn something about this – the name of the etching acid or a primer say and ask if that is what they like to use. Or if someone sounds highly experienced and can really communicate, say something wrong about pro duct or process to see if they catch you out. If this is what they do and have been doing it for ten years, they should be able to correct you and say “I do it this way or use this product”. If someone says that to you and what they are saying is correct, you found your person. I would have this figured out in the first three minute phone call.
About pay. A couple things about people who labor first: Dork mentions that this may be their “side gig”. For the sake of the worker assume that it may be their ONLY gig and they may be relying on what you pay them to eat that week. Keep something in mind with ALL of us who work: we are ALL vulnerable. we all get injured and sometimes have to miss work because we get injured at work. we get covid. Our bodies get tired and when we get old parts break. People who are self employed have to provide sick days and medical care and retirement themselves (and all of these things happen at some point; in 42 years, I have been in the ER 5 times for work related injuries – the last time in 2019). minimum wage or $20 an hour off the books does not provide any of the protections a W2 worker enjoys (my teenage son who has everything provided for him does yard work for neighbors at $25 an hour; that’s what I charged to do handyman work as a “side gig” in 1995). instead of doing what some of the capitalists in this city do and try to source people based on how they look or some attribute that is otherwise illegal to use in hiring and pay them some wage that we would not want our own children toiling at, consider that they are human beings deserving of dignity just like any American worker; in this environment it is beginning to look like $30 an hour would be the bare minimum for any self employed adult doing anything at all. if you find an experienced person who can talk the talk, I would venture to say about $50 an hour and if you find someone who is running a business with full on insurance and paying into the system, I would expect that person to charge $100 an hour or even more (a prevailing wage plastering job was recently advertised at $77 per hour plus state protections and a full benefits package: that has to top $110 an hour) (somewhere there is a painter who will do this for $100 an hour; that may not make sense)
Now that I said all of this, how long will this take and what could the labor cost? it looks like this: if they can find a way to power wash it and dry it in one day, they can apply the acid wash and rinse it in the same day. drying it may take time and getting the crevices dry may be a problem. If all that is done in the first day, they can prime the second; paint the third; apply a second coat the forth. I am not sure a third coat would provide any benefit here because I do believe that galvanized fails from underneath before it fails from the elements. Dork can say more to that.
If you hire someone at 50 an hour/350 a day, they may charge the full day rate even if this takes only say 6 hours because for them, their day is shot; there is no running to another gig. So for labor on this job at 350 a day, I think you are looking at $1400. If I were not running a business, I would be happy with that and guess what, it would be done right.
dorkofwindsor | 2 years and 11 months ago
you almost certainly won’t find anyone who knows how to do this correctly. you should probably test it yourself (cleaning, then testing with copper sulfate etc) – i didn’t see you mention if this was new or old galvanized steel. You’ll need to get to bare metal without compromising the coating. Power washer (gas powered, high PSI) might not be a bad idea.
my problem is finding someone i can communicate with reliably, since my Spanish is spotty. with a specific process like this, i would probably type it out (in appropriate language) and price it from there. And when i say price it from there, i mean i am lucky to find someone and just say yes to the price lol.
Most often this is a cash side gig for laborers. I literally have to spell it out down to reminding them to continually stir the paint if there is any flattener in there (anything that is not full
gloss). as well as what is to be expected for protecting the concrete from drips and spills . getting the job on paper and setting my expectations goes a long way to controlling my eventual and hopefully only partial disappointment. :).
no one wants to do this job, if you found someone knowledgable and skilled enough the price would be not that far from replacing the iron. best of luck, i dread this job every 4 years or so.
my current daydreams include some kind of steel tube “sleeve” where the fence can pull out, brought to a metal shop and blasted and powder coated. wouldn’t work for my rear deck, but hey i can dream.
andriywww1990 | 2 years and 11 months ago
So with old galvanized, it gets a sort of oily feeling white residue on it. I have not felt it in years so i just looked it up to confirm that i am not imagining this: it is called white rust. It is the result of oxidation. For this reason, if i were painting galvanized, i would chemically etch it first.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
Sorry, with all due respect bob, it was banned in 1978. But what’s a difference of three years to us?
If you wish to recall the smell of leaded gasoline, ask me the next time you are here. I saved a gallon and have it in my shed.
RobertGMarvin
in Exteriors 2 years and 11 months ago
I doubt that there was lead in that primer since it was in 1975which, I think is after it was banned. The stuff did work well though.
I’d normally like to stop by, but will be away until later in the month.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
btw bob, i am doing some cleaning and ran across a few advertising tins here. i am in my shop if you wish to get in the car. some of them have banned product in them.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
someone made that paint for sears. they rebranded it. the real problem with the paint you used is not that it was from sears and we can no longer find it, but that it probably had lead in it and that probably helped it a bit. that is a long time ago. i bet the directions on the can are written in hieroglyphics.
RobertGMarvin
in Exteriors 2 years and 11 months ago
I THINK that special primers are only needed for NEW galvanized metal and that any good primer intended for metal will work with old galvanized, providing that it’s properly cleaned. Many years ago I had my wooden front hatch cover covered with galvanized sheet metal and recall using some sort of yellowish translucent primer intended for new galvanized and aluminum. I bought it from Sears, which does no one any good today.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
i have been thinking about how to get a painter for something like this and now i will lay out some facts that many of us are not aware of:
the people running around the city now are not painters. i have hired them with mixed results; some listen and want to learn, most want to rush through the job and get payed. those painters have run all of the real painters, the tradesmen, out of business.
what you really need is a painter with a van and with his or her name professionally painted with his or her name on the side of it. i know, it costs a lot of money for painters to set up their vans that way but it also means they are proud of their work. these painters don’t exist anymore. they would have to bill at something like 120 an hour to drive that fancy van around and do all that studying to know how to do this and carry all of that insurance. the “painters” we now have in the city have run all of the guys with the vans out of business. i know, none of this helps you, but:
try to find a commercial painter in the city. there are painters in there wor king in commercial buildings who still have to go to work and present themselves to building managers who like to ask a lot of questions. these guys bill a little more and they cannot have paint peeling in 2 years, even if the application was difficult because it was aluminum, stainless, or galvanized. you might also try this: look in naussau county. there are still some painters out there who treat their trade like a profession and either know a lot, study a lot, or are willing to converse and LISTEN to some other pro or make a call to ben moore, pittsburgh, or sherwin. if this were me (i am not marketing myself for this job), i would call all three and listen to them and still talk to my friends who live by the water on Long Island. Try Nassau County for a painter you can converse with.
i am not marketing myself to do this. i am very aware that someone out there knows how to do this and has done but i am also aware that any homeowners in brooklyn who have had this done are probably in the same position you are; that is why we have not heard from them. Unless you hire a pro who is conversant in this and can switch to a new process because they have moved between processes on metal, wood, drywall, and fiberglass all their lives, you are going to have to direct the people you hire. to do this, you have to take the bits of information i have provided and do the research; part of doing anything around the house or in this business is knowing the questions to ask and where to get the answers: i have armed you with all of that. if you make the calls i suggest above, in two hours you will know more than i do about applying paint to galvanized steel.
Homeinspector is a new screen name for Doorsbythetinkerswagon. if you people thought my post were long winded and too detailed, they are about to get a lot worse.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
And if the paint is peeling, a power washer may take the rest off.
And by the way. You might be better off doing all this yourself. From what i just told you, even with the still unanswered questions, you already know more than 95% of the painters out there here in the city. You came on here knowing more when you used the word “primer”. Do you think any of them would admit they don’t know something and consult this board or call a manufacturer?
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
I just checked the sherwin williams website. We use certain high performance paints from them. They have an entire line of industrialized enamels and epoxies. I did not look at the primers.
If you are someone who judges a company’s products by its stock price, sw’s stock usually floats around $500 a share.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
So i just did some reading. They say to etch with white vinager, an acid.
I would look at pittsburgh. They have a self etching primer.
You may wish to talk to people at the technical team at pittsburgh and tell them what you are doing.
If that pittsburgh primer will work, you should be able to use any paint over it. One i like is the ben moore super spec industrial coatings.
The keys is surface prep and primer.
And i repeat: be very careful with corner paint stores. You have to tell them what you want. If you tell them what you are trying to do and they do not have what you really need, they will sell you what they have and what they have may not do it.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
And ben moore once made epoxy coatings for metal. Price was reasonable. I have not seen it in some years so not sure if still avail.
justinromeu26 | 2 years and 11 months ago
Understanding that painting is a process that includes priming puts you way ahead of the “painters” we have in this city today.
Look at these companies for product: pittsburgh, ox line, rustoleum.
Ben moore has something called DTM – direct to metal. But i have NEVER used it without primer. See what they say.
Call a maritime supply like west marine and see what they have.
Also, investigate epoxy. I don’t mean epoxy to put things together but i mean coatings.
On something like this, if you ask a retailer here in the city, you have to research behind them.
Also. Perhaps there is a way to etch the galvanization so the primer holds better. Not sure.
If someone cannot come on here with something more definite, i will make some calls
If people think my post under doorsby are long and boring, now that i want to become a home inspector and conveyance of information will be paramount, my posts are about to get a lot worse.