Posted by Rick K on May 10, 2008, 10:30 pm, in reply to "Re: Rick's 2008 spring project"
Thanks for the encouragement Harry.
I have been bouncing back and forth between various parts of this project for the last few days, depending on the weather and what part I felt like doing. Nothing has advanced far enough to merit new pictures however.
The railing is quite a bit closer to being finished. I am hoping to paint it some time this week if the weather co-operates. I also did another batch of castle stone today. I almost maybe have enough... I want to squeeze in another couple of 20 square foot batches so that running out of whatever sizes I need won't be an issue when I start laying stone.
The Kirkman #2 hooded reflector lantern arrived Thursday night. It is a work a art for sure! However, making it be the color I planned on is going to be harder than I originally assumed. The lantern comes two ways at the moment... galvanized, or black over galvanized. I am going with green for this project, as I really think that green was a more common color back in 1900. So, I ordered galvanized, thiking I could just slap some green spray paint on it and that would be the end of that. While waiting for the lantern to arrive I did a bit of research and found that painting galvanized metal is not all that simple. Most spraypaints won't stick well to galvanized steel. Even the paints that will stick require some proper surface preparation for the paint to stick properly. After looking at many alternatives, my plan is to go with the POR-15 system that I am using for everything else. The POR web site says it will work on galvanized steel with proper technique. More research says that there are other steps that need to be taken even before starting the painting process. Apparently galvanized metal needs to be exposed to the real world for a few days to allow the zinc coating to finish doing whatever it is that it does. What happens is refered to in multiple places as "bleeding". I believe that bleeding is sort of an oxidation that shows up on the surface. From what I gather, if you paint it before it "bleeds", you will have issues with proper paint adhesion.
So, yesterday I washed the lantern down with mineral spirits, followed by soap and water, to remove and waxes or oils that might be on the surface. Then I left it out in the rain overnight. Sure enough, this morning I saw significant amounts of white stuff showing up here and there. I believe this is the "bleeding" that several sources refered to. I washed it down again and left it out there to finish doing whatever it is that it is going to do. In a few days I will start the POR-15 painting process. Be aware that without expensive resperators it is dangerous to spray POR-15. They claim that it flows well when brushed on. I don't plan on breathing the stuff in and dying, so I will be using a brush for this entire project. I don't think they had paint sprayers in 1900 either, so it should be historically correct to do so.
Maybe Woody has some thoughts on proper painting techniques. Right now I don't want to interupt him by asking him as he is working on so many things (including my second lantern). When this whole thing settles down I will shoot him an e-mail with my experiences and ask him what he would do if it was him that was doing it.
I will post pictures in a few days when I have some progress worth seeing.
Rick
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