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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
The authoritative public forum
for Metal Finishing 1989-2025
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Preparing Stainless for Painting
Q. I am looking to paint on Stainless steel using acrylic paint. How should I prepare the surface and what kind of CLEAR primer do you recommend? Do I even need a primer for Stainless? I am also looking for a water based primer, rather than oil or epoxy. The other half of my project involves just steel. Same questions as above.
Thanks,
- San Francisco, California, USA
2002
A. Dear Miki
I did some research on this matter, and came up with some links. I do not know if this will be any help to you at all, as I do not know the effect you are attempting to achieve.
I also took the liberty to search the web to see if I could find some of your work, and I must say that I was very impressed with what I saw :) Keep up the good work, as your imagery is absolutely fascinating.
This is advice for painting a DeLorean (the stainless steel car in "Back To The Future" [adv: the Trilogy on DVD from
eBay &
Amazon affil links]).
The steel should first be polished smooth to take the texture out. After polishing, the steel should be acid etched so that the paint will stick to the panels well (paints & primers do not adhere well to stainless steel, as you probably already know). Look into DuPont Imron with an acid-etch primer, which might do the job.
Oh well, that is all I could find out for you. Sorry that there were no real references to Acrylic paints, but the important bit seems to be the priming of the metal, before applying any type of paint. Good luck on your project... whatever it is (would love to see more of your works)
Regards
John
- Copenhagen, Denmark
2003
Ed. update July 2023: Por-15 'Metal Ready' apparently no longer exists. A search of por15.com for that comes up empty. But we believe that [adv: Por-15 MetalPrep on eBay or Amazon [affil links] is its new name or replacement; they also offer their Por-15 rust preventative paint ⇦ this on eBay or Amazon [affil links] , and their 2k matte clear coat [adv: Por-15 2k Clearcoat on eBay or Amazon [affil links] .
John's links bounce here in 2023. Thankfully, The Internet Archive preserved copies here and here
These days information often never sees print, then disappears forever. If that concerns you please consider a donation to The Internet Archive before it's too late. Your grandchildren and great grandchildren will thank you.
A. Hi mate. For prep on painted your best option is blast; but if you cannot do this, a rough sand to remove gloss and abrasively graze the steel. For products you should go down to your international or silicon paint store, these are the best products, and use an Intercure 200 epoxy primer or 251. These paints are designed for stainless steel and can be over coated with almost anything :)
Hope this helps
Painter - Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
April 25, 2013
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