Painting Powder Coating (NB)

[Stemar]

SWBO has bought some outside lights in a sale. They're white, and black is unavailable, but she has decided she wants black.../forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

They apear to be cast aluminium, with a white coating with a plasticy feel to it. I presume some kind of powder coating. Is there any kind of (sensibly priced) paint that will stick, and what kind of preparation/priming would you suggest?

I have some special primer for melamine. Is this likely to be any use?

 

[Joe_Cole]

Sorry, but from the information you are able to give we can only guess. Why not try out the melamine primer on part of the lights and see what happens?

If the lights are small (i.e. wall mounted) I would try out an aerosol of black "Hammerite" , but this could work out expensive if they are standard lights. It's all guesswork though! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[fluffc]

I think that you can degrease (dilute fairy liquid), sand down to get a rough surface, and treat as bare metal.

As these are lights though, you may have heat problems with whatever finish you put on them.

 

[ianabc]

My powder coating shop recommends using a cheap epoxy paint. The inexpensive epoxy paints are diluted with thinners. The thinking is that the solvent in the paint will etch into the origianl finish and give "teeth" to the new finish. High quality epoxy paint usualy has less thinner......

 

[snowleopard]

if my experience is anything to go by, you could stick them outside for a couple of weeks till the coating peels off then start again with aluminium primer.