Suggestions & Solutions

Metal surface paint: The absolutely easy process so that you can do it by yourself!

Peeling paint in your yard or balcony railings? Are you bored of your metal porch furniture, but it’s not yet time to buy new ones? Do you want to turn an old favorite metal item into new?

You can restore your metal surfaces, easily and cheaply, by painting them yourself. The process is easy, and the immediate results will impress you!
Choose the surface you want to restore and follow our directions.

TIP: In order to make the process fun for you, we suggest you choose an item with relatively large surfaces. The details in a yard door or the balcony railings need more time and patience and that kind of work should not be done under extreme heat conditions.

Materials and tools you’ll need:

  • A brush to clean the surface
  • Sandpaper or a pulse sander
  • A paintbrush or roll for painting metal
  • ISOLAC-RUST PRIMER
  • ISOLAC-DUCO GLOSS (glossy finish) or ISOLAC-DUCO SATIN (satin finish)
  • WHITE SPIRIT

As you’ll see, the process is similar to painting wooden surfaces. So, for all of you that used our instructions to restore your wooden furniture, you’ve now gained useful experience that applies to this project, as well!

Have you bought the appropriate materials and chosen the surface you’ll paint? You can begin!

TIP: Choose to paint outdoors, in sunlit days, where the painted surfaces can dry quickly. If, though, you paint indoors, you have to make sure there’s adequate ventilation.

Preparing to paint: cleaning and priming the metal surface

To prepare our surface appropriately, we clean it thoroughly with a brush so that it’s dry and without any rust, oils, loose materials, dust, etc. Then, we smooth the surface with the appropriate sandpaper. For the correct choice of sandpaper grit, ask at the store where you bought your tools.
We make sure to remove rust, if it exists, while sanding, at the degree we can, and we also try to create a relatively healthy base layer to apply the paint better.
After we’ve smoothed the base layer’s irregularities and we’ve achieved the desired result, we clean the surface once again, removing dust.

TIP: To achieve a very smooth result, and to also simplify the sanding procedure, especially for large surfaces, we can use a special sanding power tool called a pulse sander.

Then, we prime the surface with the rust-proof primer for metal surfaces ISOLAC RUST-PRIMER. The ISOLAC RUST-PRIMER is applied with a paintbrush or a roll, in one or two layers, 5%–10% thinned with WHITE SPIRIT The second layer is applied after the first is completely dry, after about 8 hours or the next day.

TIP: To achieve a better application of the final layer, we suggest after the first layer has dried, smooth it again with sandpaper.

DIY: Painting the metal surface

You’ve finished preparing the surface and you’re ready to paint! The most creative part of the process begins! Choose one of the selected hues from the ISOMAT COLOR SYSTEM and grab your paintbrush!

And since a good result comes from using good materials, it’s important to choose a high-quality paint with increased hardness and shine, like the ISOLAC-DUCO enamel.

We apply the ISOLAC-DUCO with a paintbrush or a roll, in two layers, thinned up to 5% with WHITE SPIRIT. The second layer is applied after the first one is completely dry, after about 24 hours.

Tool cleaning

Remove as much paint from your tools as you can before cleaning them. Then, clean your tools immediately after use with WHITE SPIRIT.
Your project is complete and we’re sure that your surface is like new! Did you have so much fun that you didn’t want to put your paintbrush down? Time to raise the difficulty level and paint your porch furniture or railings! The result will certainly be quite satisfactory.