Hi Colin,

When I repainted my Boxford shaper and Denham lathe I used Tractol enamel and their industrial etching primer which seems to have worked well. You can use the Tractol enamel without a primer but I decided to use one anyway. The fumes from the etching primer are pretty noxious so you need plenty of ventilation and probably a face mask when you are using it.

John

Edited By John Baguley on 27/02/2014 15:06:22

Edited By John Baguley on 27/02/2014 15:07:32

I've used both ordinary enamel paints and Hammerite on my machinery in the past Colin.

I didn't pre-prime with the Hammerite and frankly I didn't really prepare the surface well enough either, so found it tended to chip easily. I did prime before the enamel coats though and this has lasted well (thus far) on the smaller tools I've used it on.

My learning has been to do as good a job of prepping the surfaces as possible (I take it right down to bare metal where possible using Nitromors) and then priming it with a good metal primer. I also take time to mask everything up. These days I generally use 'Engine' enamel from these people below (read the paint spec):

**LINK**

It's not a cheap paint but then most good paints aren't these days. It takes quite a bit of time to do a good job on a large bit of kit, so it makes sense to buy decent materials to do it with. I used to worry about original manufacturers colours etc. but these days just choose one that looks right (e.g. pleases me)

Regards,

IanT

Nitromors is pretty nasty stuff fume wise so I would use a scratch brush on an angle grinder plus a dust mask.

If a machine is painted by a pro they spray on a high build primer which will leave a nice smooth coat and mask any casting mottling etc. When I have done this in the past the priming has let it down so I'd guess some sanding and maybe a couple of coats at least might be needed,

One trick to obtain a very high gloss finish is to use Techaloid and thin it with white spirits but it will take days and days to dry out. I've also polished brush marks out with automotive cutting paste but again more than one coat is likely to be needed – I did that on a morgan type kit car once. It took 3 coats and a lot of elbow grease.

John

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Any more info on the paints used David – do you mean artists oil paints and solvent based varnish such as the exterior grade stuff?

John

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The problem nowadays is finding suitable paints,a lot of manufacturers have disappeared or bought out,I mainly restore stationary engines and have also built some Allen foundry hot air engines, 40 years ago Woolworths wet look gloss was superb paint lasting up to 30 years on engines, in more recent times Japlac enamel was very very good but no longer available,I recently tried an widely advertised coach paint with a good range of colours to suit the vintage market buts its awful stuff to use and the finish is poor particularly on sheet metal,despite using expensive brushes. There is also the problem of the increasing change to water based paint,I have never tried it on metal surfaces,has anyone on this site used water based paint on cast iron which has been primed with a couple of coats of oil based red oxide ? . Has any one tried the B and Q Valspar ,an old name re introduced ? I never liked Hammerite. Blackfriars red oxide is very good ,Screwfix red oxide is very poor,

I've not used this but have heard reports that it's pretty good for machine painting. They do a number of colours, matt or gloss. Also spray cans. The reports were based on using a brush but I have no idea if it was diluted or used as it comes.

**LINK**

Techaloid is still available and as far as I know remains unchanged. It's a synthetic coach paint. That does benefit from thinning when brushed on – as I mentioned. The correct thinners might dry more quickly.

David's post interested me as International Yacht Varnish is available and seem to brush well.

John

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