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Best cleaner for bare metal pre-painting

2005

I have recently started one-stroke painting and need to clean items like metal watering cans and vases so that the base-coat sticks properly.

I've told that vinegar ⇦ in bulk on eBay or Amazon [affil link] and water is a good solution (excuse the pun) but are there any more suggestions out there?

Janet Moss
Crafter - Triangle, West Yorkshire, UK

The required pretreatment depends on what kind of metal you're dealing with, but I'd guess that those watering cans are made of hot dip galvanized steel. Perfect adhesion is hard to get, as explained in letter 22099, but you probably don't need perfect adhesion for this reasonably simple application. People have suggested scrubbing with trisodium phosphate ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] and a tampico brush, and priming with Galvanize Primer ⇦ on eBay or Amazon [affil link] [affil link]

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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2005

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