Painting oil tank

[Keith Dunbar]

Just a quick query. What paint would you use to paint an oil tank. I presume some sort of rust preventative first - red oxide? Then what sort of paint for the top coat?

TIA

Keith

[Dave Osborne]

Hammerite. Have a look here: -

the usage guide at the bottom of the page. Normally no primer is required.

[Andy Dingley]

Bitumen based, which means black. This is probably what's on there already and it really doesn't mix well with other paints. Johnsons do a decent one that Screwfix carry. Otherwise try a truck factor like Edmunds Walker and ask for "chassis black".

The red oxides are a bit of a fraud these days - their heyday was when they contained the lead oxides, excellent primer materials (bit nippy though!). Now it's an iron oxide then it's an good cheap, stable undercoat but nothing spectacular as a primer.

Zinc paints (try Davids 182) are the best thing for car repair work, but they're only any use if they're on perfectly clean bare steel.

Finnegan's No1 isn't bad as a primer over averagely-cleaned steel, as left by an angle grinder with a wire brush in it (best sort of practical portable preparation machine to use).

Hammerite (and Smoothrite) are over-rated crap. Many posts passim.

If it's black, go with bitumen. If it's green, go with the best red oxide primer you can buy from a commercial bodyshop supplier. It'll be better and cheaper than stuff from reail shops.

[Appin]

The message from "Keith Dunbar" contains these words:

Most large towns have a specialist paint dealer. Worth their weight in gold if you can find them in the depths of some industrial estate where the public rarely penetrate. Excellent industrial-grade products for a fraction of the cost of the rubbish you buy on the High Street or in the big box stores.

Have a look in Yellow Pages under "Decorators' Merchants" or in White Pages under "Paint Stores" but you may find that many of these places don't advertise at all. They don't need to. They don't really want hordes of the public traipsing in, though they're perfectly happy to serve an intellgent member of the public and advise on what's suitable for a particular job.

In point of fact, we've a trade account with our local one, though that's another story -- the same firm service our ten fire extinguishers under contract, but they're absolutely brilliant for paint which is their main line of business and quite happy to do cash sales.

FWIW, if you still have a metal oil tank I'd certainly go for a really thick bituminous product, but you need something far thicker than the cheap and nasty bituminous paint sold on the high street. One of the thick roofing sealants or car body underseals might be more appropriate.

The time spent finding a really good suppplier who know their stuff is well worth it. Get the right stuff and you won't have to redo it for years and years, but get the wrong stuff and you'll be redoing it in a couple of years.

[Keith Dunbar]

The tank is particularly rusty, but should I still treat any rusty areas with something - all I know of is Jenolite but I expect there is something better.

Keith

[Dave Osborne]

OK, that told me. I'll get me coat ;-)

Rumble

[Andy Dingley]

Right stuff (phosphoric acid), but the price is insane.

Best stuff is an opaque white liquid, not pink: phosphoric acid + tannates. This gives a better surface coat afterwards. Any engineering supplier or industrial paint shop will have it, and it's cheap by the gallon. Failing that, try a dope-growing hydroponics shop and buy some glacial phosphoric acid. Use it neat.

[geoff]

In message , Andy Dingley writes

phosphoric acid

... with a few added extras

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember geoff saying something like:

It's amazing what you find when you're not looking for it. I found milk tank de-scaling liquid from the farmer supply store was nothing more than phosphoric acid - about 40% conc iirc. Not that I need it; I still have a gallon of 99.9% conc from a local chemlab supply house and it was only a few quid anyway.

[Appin]

The message from "Keith Dunbar" contains these words:

Just found the involce covering the last stuff I use on a metal roof:

Evo-stik Prufe-it which cost me at my trade suppliers £6.99 + VAT for each 5 litre can.

Very happy with the end result