Paint only lasts as long as the surface under it
A new coat bonds to whatever is already there. If that is an old coating that has started to lift, mill scale on steel, or rust that is still working, the new paint inherits every one of those weaknesses and lets go with them. Most coating failures that look like a bad paint job are really a bad surface.
The opposite mistake is just as expensive. Blast a soft substrate with the wrong medium and you cut into the part you meant to save, leaving a rough, pitted face that no coating will hide. Hard media suit heavy steel. Gentle media suit delicate metal, stainless and surfaces that cannot lose any material at all.
Choosing the method is therefore half the job, and it is the part a painter who owns one blast cabinet cannot offer. The answer depends on what is on the surface, what is under it and what has to be left alone.
One shop, a full range of blasting methods
Spies Painting has the equipment to remove almost any coating and properly prepare surfaces as required. The shop lists the Latest Media Blasting Methods it runs: vapor, sponge, soda, dry ice, walnut shell and corn cob, and glass bead for stainless steel, along with power washing and more. The full list is set out below, in the shop's own words.
Spies Painting provides in-shop and on-site blasting operations to suit customer needs. Small parts and equipment can come to the shop on US Highway 151 in Fond du Lac, where the blast bay is set up with steel beams on sawhorses. Work that cannot move gets blasted where it stands.
Rust removal is a regular part of that work, and so is the washdown that comes first. Cleaning a surface before it is blasted keeps grease and dirt from being driven into the metal, which is the kind of small step that decides whether the finish coat holds.
The blasting comes first on every Spies job
Blasting is the first coat of every job the shop paints. The family that has run Spies Painting since 1933 knows the work nobody sees is the work that decides how the paint looks years later.
The company puts it plainly on its own site: quality counts. Four generations on, that is still how the shop is run, and Spies Painting is a member of ABC and SSPC, the Society for Protective Coatings.
If you are not sure which method fits your part, building or equipment, ask. Call (920) 921-7107 or request a call back online and a representative will contact you within the next business day. The FREE estimate covers the prep as well as the paint.
