Come end of the year we will see lots of people painting their front gates and door grills. Lot of homeowners who have the means have replaced their iron gates with steel ones that does not rust or loose it’s shine, but those are pricey, so the majority of people still stick with those made of mild steel or in simple terms called iron gates.
Most contractors never sandblast the iron bars and rods that they use to fabricate our front gates or grills. If they do, the cost of these gates and grill will shoot up sky high. The best they do is to coat it with a cheap layer of oxide paint before applying the top coat with gloss paint. The problem is when they apply the oxide paint which is suppose to protect the iron material from rust attack, they never remove the rust that is already present. They just apply the coating, rust and all. This makes the layer of oxide paint looses it’s primary use, that is to protect rust from setting in. Though it is still better than none, the existing rust will start to eat from inside.
The next time you plan to paint your gates or grills, look for tell tale blisters in the gates. A blister means rust is working it’s way out form the inside. If you use a scrapper or a screwdriver to chip off the blister, you will see that there is already a small hole that has been eaten away by the rust.
When that happens, there are 2 things that you can do to prolong the life of your grills or gates. First chip of as much as you can. The area surrounding the small hole got to be thoroughly rid off rust. Use a coarse sandpaper to remove the old layer of paint, then use a steel brush to brush or all signs of rust. Get a pack of epoxy that are available at all hardware shops. Sometimes they all it “2 ton”. This epoxy is a very strong compound. It come in 2 tubes and you have to mix the 2 together equally to get a strong bond.
Get ready a mixture of epoxy and apply it over hole that rust has eaten away. Try to make it as even as possible to save you the work of smoothening the area when the epoxy has set. Wait for the epoxy to full harden then try to even out the area and smoothen it with sandpaper. Apply a good layer of Oxide paint over the whole area where you have scrapped off the paint.
Repeat this procedure for all the blisters that you find. It might actually take a day or two if your gates have badly rusted. When you are sure all areas have been covered, you now apply the top coat with a color of your choice. If you have been thorough, you gate can easily last you another 10 years without any bad case of rust.