Painting bare steel

[obullfish]

What’s the best method of prep and painting bare metal bumpers on a budget? Any spray can paints worth a shit? Looking at a semi gloss black.

 

[Deplorable]

Rust-oleum clean metal primer followed by Rust-oleum professional high performance enamel. It's a step above the regular stuff. Easy to work with and goes on nicely.

I did all my fenders, sliders and bumpers with it and turned out great. Plus easy touch ups as necessary. 12 months later I'm just as pleased. I used gallons and sprayed my own with a $8 HF spray gun. But you can buy it in spray cans.

 

[obullfish]

Rust-oleum clean metal primer followed by Rust-oleum professional high performance enamel. It's a step above the regular stuff. Easy to work with and goes on nicely.

I did all my fenders, sliders and bumpers with it and turned out great. Plus easy touch ups as necessary. 12 months later I'm just as pleased. I used gallons and sprayed my own with a $8 HF spray gun. But you can buy it in spray cans.

Did you thin it any before spraying?

 

[Deplorable]

Did you thin it any before spraying?

Yep. If I recall, I used acetone. Or whatever the gallon can said. Has been a tough finish that sprayed nicely. It's all I plan to use going forward.

 

[WARRIORWELDING]

Rust-oleum clean metal primer followed by Rust-oleum professional high performance enamel. It's a step above the regular stuff. Easy to work with and goes on nicely.

I did all my fenders, sliders and bumpers with it and turned out great. Plus easy touch ups as necessary. 12 months later I'm just as pleased. I used gallons and sprayed my own with a $8 HF spray gun. But you can buy it in spray cans.

I really like their oil base stuff. Takes longer to dry. If I thin it at all I use mineral spirits. Seems to work well. I had a horrible paint reaction using lacquer on some projects. Bad pin hole fish eye crap. Lower temps don't seem to bother it much other than slow drying time. Thinner coats seem to cure better than heavy ones.
I use a devilbiss pot style gun for all my equipment type painting.


Had to edit my chemical put wrong stuff first.....naphtha works just more exspensive.

 

[Jeff B]

Cheap ass rattle can primer and paint. When you beat it on the rocks and mud. Just spen 5$. Hell, it's cheaper than washing off the ure dust.

 

[broncosbybart]

For a cheap job, rustoleum will work. You can use a high quality paint roller for application. Gives it a mild textured finish. Rustoleum will fade/turn chalky with time. It's far from the best solution but can work if you don't care that much.

 

[obullfish]

Looking for a durable solution that will hold up and can be touched up when it gets some rock rash.

 

[CasterTroy]

My rock rails came bare steel. I hit them with acetone and used black gloves to handle so I didn't get oil on the bare steel. Then rustolium primer in the tall cans. Then gloss black in the tall cans. About 4 cotes of each. After each ride I hit them again with BLACK

No issues in 2 years

 

[Croatan_Kid]

The Rustoleum Universal spray bombs work really well. It's paint and primer in one and it dries hard as hell. I used it on a lot of my solid axle stuff and it's been holding up damn good and has a nice finish to it.

 

[rodney eppes]

Looking for a durable solution that will hold up and can be touched up when it gets some rock rash.

I've had good luck with either Epoxy spray paint, or Appliance paint. Seem to be a little Harder finish than standard paint, & no fade. Both had in rattle cans, & I paint my bumper & nerf bars with them.

 

[Tacoma747]

You can just be like all the cool kids and leave it bare metal so you have to thoroughly clean and spray on rust preventative every time you take it out. I guess maybe that has it's place on a race buggy though...