Removing Hammerite

I?d try acetone. It will ( almost certainly) remove the clear coat. I suspect also the Hammerite.

I?ve ?baked? Hammerite in a oven I heated to the lowest it would go (120 C i think) and place the work in there, oven off, door ajar. It seemed to work- I wanted a tough finish on a brackets which where going to be exposed.

Can you protect the Hammerite by masking? It is only the bare brass you need to clear coat.

Also, brass contains Zinc which is a s*d to paint. You MAY want to research a suitable primer compatible with Hammerite.

Or clear coat everything first, let dry completely, then add the Hammerite.

It's probably the "faster" solvents in the clearcoat that attack the Hammerite, and those will dry off.

Thomas Prufer

That would be my suggestion as well, it should also stop issues of the paint being attacked by the brass as well. Brian

As the background is sunken, after applying the Hammerite you could top up with sand, varnish the raised bits then brush out the sand?

Wouldn't like to bet on the Hammerite the thinners was xylene or toluene (I think they changed from on to the other but can't remember which way...). Both of those are benzene based, acteone isn't.

Personally I'd not bother with the clear coat, It will fail and end up patchy. Just let it weather or if you must polish it once a year.

The Hammerite is rubber based. I'd put the varnish on first.

The MSDS for brushable Hammerite says nothing about any relation to rubber.

The product description is: Styrenated oil modified alkyd containing organic, inorganic pigment, aliphatic and aromatic solvents.

It is a cross linked cure on setting as it dries polymer formulation that once fully cured is probably impervious to most solvents as far as being dissolved again but it will swell up with organic solvents.

There is a warning to recoat inside the cure window when it will still bond to itself or waiting until after allowing a full cure. Repainting in the interim period tends to be disastrous with the under layer deforming and swelling up through absorbing solvent from the next coat. In cold weather you need to allow a lot more time for a full cure.

There may be a plasticiser in the mix but nothing like a rubber latex.

Not thought of that .... as long as Hammerite will paint smoothly on top of it and not run off - it is a heavy paint. Went to web site it states do not apply primers first, but once I clean back off may try this.

Neat idea.

Correct it says 'on the tin' recoat after 4 Hrs

I waited 48 Hrs ... and the clear coat certainly reacted with the Hammerite. Going to be a right pain to sand down, as its all fiddly, with letters & numbers. :-( I may try media blasting

Repainting

Hammerite takes weeks to fully cure. If you miss the recoat window you need to wait. Just checked an (old) tin of Hamerite Smooth. 3 hr recoat window miss that, wait 6 weeks. The tin of thinners is xylene.

That is tosh. I painted a gate with a metal zinc stuff, and used Hammerite over that and its been on for 20 years and is only now chipping due to some rust underneath. Brian

It means recoatble with the same paint system though. Not with some other solvent based paint. I can't find it on their website but the original Hammerite formulation required about 2-3 weeks additional cure time before it became more or less impervious to solvent attack.

If you didn't apply the second coat inside the right window of opportunity 4hr-10hr then results were less than optimal. Working outdoors sometimes the second coat had to be delayed due to weather.

The new formulation is somewhat more eco friendly but still very high VOC and I think has slightly different characteristics. Towards the end of my old oil tank's life it was pretty much held together by the stuff.

You might get away with sanding it to remove the surface irregularities and recoat. They advise testing any mixed paint/Hammerite combos first.