Hey guys, I cut some stuff out over the weekend and the crossfire/plasma worked great (only had one tip up). I cleaned off the parts with a flapper disc on my grinder which got rid of the minor dross and some mill scale. I then went ahead and put 2 layers or paint/primer on the parts. The problem that I’m getting is you can still see minor scratches and grind marks from the flapper disc through the paint. I even did like 4 layers on one and still see them (white paint). I was wondering how you guys finish your products to make them look so great. I have just been using rattle cans and wasn’t really wanting to buy powder coating stuff and don’t really have room in the garage for an oven.
I start with a 36 or 60 grit and finish with a 120 grit flap wheel. Dross is easy enough to kick off but it’s the mill scale on hot rolled steel that requires a bunch of work.
After the 120 flap wheel if I want an even cleaner finish I’ll use a 220 grit screen on a random orbital sander.
I use either patina finishes (Steel F/X) or rattle can paint. When it’s warmer I have a blasting cabinet & powder coating setup but that’s in an unheated shed so I haven’t been doing that for the past month or so - too much winter in CT
I use a 40 grit ceramic flap disc. Just the weight of the grinder, rust oleum x2 paint. And tell people if you want perfect go buy the stamped tin foreign crap . This is hand finished and meant to look it.
What have you guys been using for hangers? I heard some people use Velcro tape, some super glue hangers on. I’ve been thinking about bending washers and tack welding them on the back but not sure because it might look crappy.
I made my own brackets with scrap material and tack weld them on at specific point to balance it but as for finishing, it’s really hard to blend the bare metal to mill scale, so I usually take all the mill scale off the front to get a uniform finish using either media blasting or muratic acid(can use grinder but takes way too much time, effort and too many flap disks for larger projects).
I use the brass colored sawtooth picture hangers. Originally I was using JBWeld epoxy but then I figured it was a great use case for a spot welder. They come in different sizes including some pretty beefy ones which are good for heavy steel.
