How to Buy the Right type of Paint for Metals

If you’re thinking about cleaning up a few metal items and surfaces with a fresh coat of paint, there are a few things you need to consider. Painting metal is not as simple as painting other surfaces and unlike other materials, the metal itself requires special treatment. Painting metal is not an easy task and requires some thought go into it. Firstly, we’ll state from the start that there are different paints for metals.

Here’s a detailed guide that you have to follow before buying paint for your metal object:
Which type of paint is best?

Iron and aluminium metal have different characteristics; thus, they require different paint requirements too. Iron and zinc metal objects are more prone to rusting quickly, while aluminum objects have a smooth surface, so they need more viscous paint.

There’s a whole controversy that can be raised about what paint is more suitable for metals. Now, we are going to discuss types of paints, to find out which one is better.

Water-based metal paints are best for indoors

Water-based metal paints are best for metal objects that are going to remain inside. As they’re quite easy to paint on smooth surfaces, they give a shiny look, which is more durable than any other. They don’t need ages to dry out instead, provide an instant finishing and look. Water-based paints contain composites, acrylics, and so on. They are easy to clean out and washable.

Water-based paints are quite friendly as they don’t contain toxic chemicals, don’t have any bad smell, and don’t produce fumes. Always choose water-based paints to give a new look to indoor metal objects.

Oil-based metal paints are best for outdoors

Outdoors metal objects need more attention than indoors. They should be saved from rust, water, UV resistance, and weather too. Outdoor metal objects are definitely more prone to rust.

To prevent all of these potential problems, we have an option of oil-based metal paints. They are highly durable and give a deep, vivid color impression. Oil-based paints do fade off easily but prevent metal from rust. They are made up of resins, pigments, solvents, and plant-based oil.

Precautions: Don’t use oil-based paints indoors. Always do this task in a wide space, as they produce flames too.

Things to consider

There are a few things to consider so the painting process is as efficient and smooth as possible.

Always be specific

Before going to purchase paints, it’s important to know what you require, as not all paints suit all metals. Your dining chair requires different paint needs whereas, your window grills have other requirements. Choose oil-based or water-based paints wisely to get better results.

Use primers

Coating your metal with a primer layer can give it a few more years of life. Use primers according to paint type before the layer of actual paint. Wash the metal surface with soap, rough cloth, or aluminum-made rough papers to get rid of all the dust and rust before you begin painting.

The Ultimate Guide to Paints for Metals

 It’s often that the job of painting metal surfaces is neglected as it’s thought to be a difficult process. While there are a few key factors that need to be considered carefully when painting metals, it’s not as hard as it’s made out to be. In this blog, we’ll take you through a guide on how to use paints for metals. Hopefully, this blog will provide you with a deeper understanding of how to paint your metal surfaces. We’ll share some tips and tricks and discuss different paints for metals to help you avoid issues like a shortened lifespan. 

Clean the surface first

Starting with a clean surface is important and required for every paint job, whether you’re painting your walls or metal surfaces. It may seem like an obvious first step, but it’s often forgotten and needs to be made a priority. You need to make sure that there is no dirt, old paint, rust or grease present on the surface. You can clean the metal using sandpaper or a similar scraping tool that can remove grease, dirt and other deposits from the surface easily. In cases where the grease deposits are heavy and hard to remove, using mineral spirits will help. 

Remove the older peelings and loose paint

Paint remains on a surface for a certain period of time and peels off when it doesn’t have any holding power left. So, when painting your metal, you need to peel away old paint completely. To do this, you can use several manual cleaning methods like wire brushing, sanding, and scraping. Other methods include the use of power cleaning tools that will yield results in no time but beware that they may end up polishing the surface, which can cause problems like adhesion to arise. 

Remove rust

Remove any sort of rust. If you see any rust on a metal surface, it will eventually reduce the adhesiveness of paint which significantly reduces the lifespan of the paint. So, you need to eliminate the rust before you start to apply the metal paint.

There are different methods you can use to eliminate rust. If the rust is light, you can use brushing, sanding or can apply a primer that comes with rust inhibition properties. In cases where you apply paint on the rusted metal, it might peel off. If it doesn’t peel off, the paint may also get rusty. There are other issues as well that you can avoid by removing the rust properly before applying paint.

Apply Primer

No matter what metal surface you are painting, applying primer is one of the most crucial steps that needs to take place. There are different primers available; in certain cases it’s suggested that water bases are not used. Primers that have  rust-inhibition properties, galvanized primers and iron oxide primers are recommended. 

Primer is mainly applied straight after cleaning the surface to avoid any sort of dust, dirt or rust from occurring on the surface. If you do not apply a primer, you may end up decreasing the longevity of the paint and ultimately you will have to repaint the surface sooner than otherwise necessary. This will be costly for you, so you should invest in a quality primer.

Industrial LED Lighting for Commercial Use

In most industries, electricity is consumed a lot for different purposes and one of the areas that consume a significant part of the energy is lighting. You might have seen industrial lights NZ wide used commonly in most warehouses, factories and other similar areas.

You have to consider efficiently using lighting to lessen the overall facility’s cost. In this blog, we will specifically talk about how you can lower energy consumption where lighting is concerned. The best-known way is to use LED lights rather than the traditional ones and in this blog, we will try to shed some light on why most of the reputable industries use LED lights on their premises.

Why you should consider LED lighting for commercial premises: What are the different benefits?

Industrial LED light fixtures are replacing other lighting types quickly. This is because of three main reasons: efficiency, light quality and maintenance. Here is how LED lights get the upper hand over other counterparts.

Energy consumption and efficiency:

With proper industrial LED lighting, you are going to save an overall energy cost of up to 80%. The savings you will make are so significant that you can even finance the spare with energy cost savings that you will see in the results.

If you use a fluorescent light (commonly used in many commercial settings) mounted on the ceiling, it will produce light and spread 360 degrees with a lot of useless emissions into the ceilings. Some of the light can be redirected or reflected as per needs but there is a lot of light that goes into nothing which means the energy wastage is high. As compared, LED lights are more energy-efficient and produce light directionally which means that there is no wasted energy targeting the ceiling or other areas in the room. So, as there is no energy wasted, you will get more savings.

Reduced maintenance cost:

Using LED means you are going to use it for a long time and utilizing these means there is little to no maintenance cost and last four to five times longer than bulbs and other lighting. Industrial facilities are large and there are often waste products and disposal issues. As such, LED conversion or retrofit completion will help you to eliminate waste disposal related issues by changing high-intensity discharge lamps to newer smart technology.

However, keep in mind that the initial cost is higher but if you consider the lifespan, you are saving a lot of money. This means, purchasing LED industrial lighting is a good investment. Not just the longer life span, with the lighting you will most probably get a long product warranty or guarantee and a reduced hassle of maintaining the product.

Lighting quality and performance:

Light coming from LEDs is of better quality and brighter because of two main reasons. First is that it has a very high colour rendering index and the objects are revealed when LED emissions to a subject are close to natural light.For example, if you have grass in your backyards, the grass will appear at night under LEDs and other colourless plants will appear under HPS. The second reason is that LEDs emit light that covers the target area more precisely as compared to other lights. In simple words, all the areas will be covered properly with LEDs.

Top Concrete Finishing Tools

Working on concrete isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. You have to be resilient, patient and with proper training before you are able to cut concrete properly. However, concrete finishing mainly depends on the tools you use. Concrete finishing tools can elevate your work but if you do not use proper tools, you may end up repeating the process again and wasting your time.

There are a lot of tools available for you to use like power screes, brooms and prayers and so many more that can come in handy and get you the desired concrete finishing tools.

Here are some of the concrete finishing tools that you can consider:

Power Screeds

At times when the concrete is poured a power screed is required to smooth the concrete and pull the excess off the back. However, it depends on the size or volume of your pour that will determine whether you need a power screed or a wooden screen board. Also, vibratory screeds are helpful in getting the top results meanwhile allow you to put less effort and time on it.

Concrete Finishing Brooms

Brooms are used when there is a need to decrease slippage and to increase friction on concrete. This technique is quite old and can be executed in different ways. A steel broom can help you get your desired patterns, no matter if you want artistic or decorative finishes.

Bull Floats

Bull floats is another widely used tool with wide blades on long handles. This tool is used to smooth surfaces for towelling, level ridges and fill voids. This tool should be used before the moisture appears on the surface after screeding.

Green Concrete Saws

Green concrete is a tool that helps in preventing random cracking on concrete by creating concrete joints. These concrete machinery (saws) are useful when issues pop up and the dried slabs require cutting. The joint placement is a concern for some people, however, all you need to do is give a space of no more than 2-3 slabs.

Concrete Edgers

Concrete edgers, another type that is used when the concrete starts to lose moisture and is becoming stiffer. An “L” shaped edge in front of the edgers helps the operator to spare the concrete from the board. Also, the precise cutting and edges makes the overall look more professional. These edges help in creating sharp edges. So, if you want slant edges you should use slant edgers not concrete edgers.

Power Trowels

For larger slabs, the best tool is the power trowel and as traditional trowels are only efficient in cutting smaller slabs. The pitch of the power trowel’s blades are easily adjustable, allowing the operator to get the speed and blade pitch as per the demand. Also, the customized cutting allows contractors to achieve a matte, gleaming or light gloss concrete finish.

There are two different types of power trowels available for use:

Ride-On Power Trowel

The operator is given a seat to sit on and operate the equipment.

Walk-Behind Power Trowel

These tools require the operator to walk behind and operate the tools and pulling is required to give the concrete a decent finish.

There are other tools as well that are widely used but the above mentioned are trusted by most of the professionals because of the results, efficiency and accuracy that they offer. You can contact a professional if you still have any doubt.