Painting stainless steel building

marvilusone

marvilusone

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 21, 2007
Location
Charleston, SC
I have a 24'x20' building that I use for my rabbits and I'm looking to paint it to help reduce the temperature inside. Right now it's raw stainless steel. I was wanting to paint it Desert Tan to help reflect the heat. What I'm wanting to find out is if I would need to prime it first and what brand/type of paint would be best. Also could I roll/brush it or would I need to spray it? Is there a house grade exterior paint I could use or would I need to go with something automotive grade since I'm painting over metal? I don't have much experience in painting other than rattle cans so any help would be great.
 
First, are you sure it's stainless steel? Maybe a shiny galvanized steel? A few pics might help. To help with the heat a attic type fan at one end pulling air through the top will help tremendously. Another idea would be to use a mesh type tarp like the ones they use on green houses.
 
i doubt it's stainless... stainless, even a low 304 grade stainless, it expensive as hell... no way would that be cost effective to manufacture.
 
Cool seal it. It's a type of roof paint designed to drop the temp.
 
Paint it black and you will have some crispy critters!! j.k

Im not much of one with painting as well but isnt it really difficult to paint on stainless steel? For instance the Delorean which is a stainless steel car werent painted, but i have seen painted ones before i think you have to go through a process to make the paint adhere to the metal. You could always roll on some Rhino line. Or add insulation and the fan like guy was talking about.
 
Yes the whole building is for my rabbits. I show and breed them. Most of my rabbits are actually small but with 80 of them in seperate cages (each cage is at least 2'x2') they need alot of room. Check out my website in my sig.

I do have an attic fan along with two other floor fans to circulate the air and a small window unit but it still stays a little too warm for them.

The building is freezer panels but the insulation was removed. I plan on insulating it at a later date but right now the funds aren't there to do it correctly along with making it air tight. In the picture you can see the small window unit I installed and the piece I cut out was used for headlight panels for my XJ and are still raw & unfinished and have not rusted or corroded yet even on the cut edges.

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*edit* don't mind the dates on the pictures, I didn't set the date when I put new batteries in it. I just took the pics about 10 min ago.
 
do you sit in that pool?? LOL
 
Nope that one is for the ducks! I have somewhat of a small farm. Five ducks, eight chickens, 80 rabbits, two chinchillas and two cats.
 
marvilusone said:
Nope that one is for the ducks! I have somewhat of a small farm. Five ducks, eight chickens, 80 rabbits, two chinchillas and two cats.
Click to expand...

E-I E-I OOOOO

:lol::lol:
 
I think you are looking at aluminum boss....

at least most freezer's Ive seen are aluminum.

Lets ask it this way, how did you cut it to install the window unit. If the answer is sawzall and it wasn't miserable, it aint stainless.
 
Def not aluminum. Tried the sawzall and it didn't work well at all. Made it about 6" before I burned up a blade. Wound up using the skill saw with a cutting blade. I know it's not aluminum due to the fact of it making sparks while I was cutting.
 
when they remodeled the local dominoes i went and got a sheet of metal that was one of the walls in their freezer... it was stainless steel..... i hate to imagine what the total cost would be to replace all those ss panels, haha. holy crap.

you will need some sort of etching primer i would think... or something similar to osfo that's designed for SS...
 
You'll need a metal etching primer, or etching acid, as well as a good base primer such as you'd prime a vehicle/trailer/tractor with. Personally I would cool seal it and call it done. Or, you could get out the polish and get it shiny enough that it reflects the heat away. You could get standard primer/paint (ie. Rustoleum) to stick decently, but you'd need to sand the entire building with 320/400 grit paper and clean the everloving piss out of it. Which would take enough time and sanding discs/paper to make it more economical to cover the thing in 1/4" plywood and paint it.
 
yeah, probally some self-etching primer if its aluminum. and some outdoor primer, (i use sherwin willams) that stuffs bad!
 
if you love your animals and want to keep the temp down use cool seal, like was mentioned on the first page. no color out there will do better than cool seal. i know it comes in silver
 
Looks like cool seal it is. Will I need to do any prep to cool seal it? Obviously I will need to give it a good cleaning but other than that is there anything else? I know 100% that is is stainless steel. I scrap alot of cars and other things on the side and trust me I know my metals. Does cool seal come in any colors or just silver and black? The other reason for painting it was to take away the "rough" look of the building. Thanks to everyone for all the help.
 
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