Repainting your stove

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Snowy Rivers

Minister of Fire
Feb 7, 2010
1,810
NW Oregon
Welllll now

Yesterday I got busy and removed the bas from the Advantage 2T so I could clean and repaint it.

Sounded easy enough alright.

Washed the base good and went over the entire surface with light sand paper ot rid the thing of some surface rust from its time in storage (before I bought it)

All sanded, wiped it down with a good paint prep solution to get any oil etc off.

Rattled up a can of "STOVE BRIGHT" and started spraying.

OOOOOOPS very soon it was apparent that there were compatibility issues.

The paint on the base pan was bubling up (Wrinkling) This is due to the solvent in the new paint not being compatible with the old materials.

Most manufactures have or do use "Stove Bright" to finish their products (past tense maybe)


Soooooo Now what.

Went back to the drawing board.

Let the paint dry and then sanded the bubbled areas off well and reshot the base.

This will be ok for the base but the top and side panels will have to be stripped first to assure a nice paint job.

This could have been avoided by using a primer sealer first.

Only problem is that the STOVE BRGHT is a low odor paint designed to be used by iteself.

Best plan if you are refinishing is to use a paint stripper first on the visible panels, to remove all the old finish, then repaint.

I am going to wait now til summer and then strip the top, back and side panels.

Once the weather is warm and dry this will be an easy job.

Definately an outdoor thing.

Snowy
 
It could be that the surface wasn't prepped well enough but you said you used automotive pre-paint cleaner so it should be OK.
The next thing that causes wrinkling is too heavy a coat. The extra paint/solvent attacks the substrate and the outer layer of paint dries faster than the wet paint underneath and wrinkles. Two things happening there.
One trick is to put on one or two very thin 'ghost' coats to make the surface tacky and put down a barrier to the base. Then follow with a more moderate couple of coats. Keep them thin, Don't lay it on thick.
 
Oh, you can also go over to Iburncorn.com and PM rona, who had quite a bit of experience repainting stoves.
 
I did the thin coat and it wrinkled almost instantly.

I have painted other stoves with Stove bright and never an issue ????????

This summer I am going to yank the top and sides off the whitfield and strip them to bare metal.
I will then use some rust mort on the few rusty spots to kill that and then repaint completely with Stove bright.

Whitfield did not use a primer coat, so that does not help.

They just assemble them and fog some color on.
They dont even paint the edges of the side covers in some places.


My stove had been in a non heated storage unit so it had some rust from condensation.

The folks I bought it from were cleaning out the storage and answered my ad on craigs list looking for a stove.


Basically it was an incompatibility in the paints.



Snowy
 
You have something on there that reacts with the paint you are putting on. A laquer and enamel will do that as will the presence of silicon. Silicon is a beast to get off and its in stuff like furniture polish and the traces last a long long time. It often causes "orange peel" which makes little circles like the peel on an orange. Getting all the silicone and impurities off the piece is the key, SUPER CLEAN.
The simple most likely correction is to try an out of the way spot and wipe it down with good old "paint thinner"not mineral spirits. Thats the stuff that they use for nail polish remover and stinks to high heaven. You can get it at Walmart the cheapest if you don't have any. Get in there with either a vegetable brush or paper towls wearing rubber gloves. Make sure you get into the crevices as thats where the oils and such collects and remains the longest. Wipe it down really well and use plenty of paper towls. Blowing the innards out with an air compressor prior to all this is a nice touch but not necessary if you have one. Get it clean like that and then after everything is dry and evaporated again test spray a spot which isn't so easily seen. If no wrinkling or orange peel is noticed then go ahead and paint the whole stove. You are using a rattle can so be super careful how you lay it on as it probably won't produce a proper fan shape spray but rather a cone. If you do happen to have a can that sprays a cone so much the better. Try to lap the previous spray by half its width and go back and forth like that keeping the can the same distance from the surface and paralell. It's just like painting with a gun but a lot harder go get right.
Start with the out of the way places first. This means do the front and top last as by then you will be better at it and not screw it up where mistakes can be seen. Here is the best piece of rattle can advice you will ever get, remember it well........ See the directions how they tell you to shake the thing till your arms fall off, you know better don't you? Me too and I did it for years. Do what they say, shake that can walking all over the place like a moron and it will work the way its supposed to. When done invert it and spray it clear and it will ( most likely) work for your next touch up.
 
The issue turned out to be that the original paint was an enamel paint and the Stove bright has a solvent that is attacking the old paint.


In my case the only way to prevent it is to either spray the old finish with a primer sealer or just remove the old finish completely.

The material I used to prep the surface is a commercial auto body, wax and silicone remover.


Just one of those things eh ??


Snowy
 
Snowy Rivers said:
The issue turned out to be that the original paint was an enamel paint and the Stove bright has a solvent that is attacking the old paint.


In my case the only way to prevent it is to either spray the old finish with a primer sealer or just remove the old finish completely.

The material I used to prep the surface is a commercial auto body, wax and silicone remover.


Just one of those things eh ??


Snowy

Could you repaint with an enamel spray? Or is it not available or too difficult to get good results from a spray can? My Harman is going to need some touching up this year and when I bought it the dealer supplied a can of paint for the task. I'll assume that not every stove has an enamel finish?
 
A primer sealer might just start to burn off under there and leave a real mess for you to strip off after. Too bad if you have to strip off the original baked on factory finish. Certain paints do react like that though. Have you tried calling the paint manufacturer and seeing what they recommend for your situation? They surely have seen this before many times and should know the best recourse. Chances are they know just what prep will get you through. If you do need to use paint stripper make sure its WELL ventilated as that stuff can give you some horrible allergic reactions.
 
10-4 on the nasty stripper

I have used that stuff in the past. Stripped an entire Grey Hound Bus once and repainted that monster during a motor home conversion.

The stove was made by Whitfield and finding out what they used for paint is going to be tough now that the company was bought up.

Just looked the stove over. Whatever they used it was not baked enamel. The stove was assembled and then painted in a paint booth. If the rear or side panels are removed, there are bare spots where the panels overlap.

I can easily remove the sheet metal panels and take them outdoors and do the stripping there in the fresh air.

Once the old paint of off, I can just repaint with the Stove Bright and be all set.

True baked enamel would be sweet.

As you said, the primer sealer could fail due to heat. Likely most would be fine as there is little heat on most of the sheet metal.

The cast Iron front door assembly is bare so not an issue.

The base came out OK after it got done bubbling and settled back down.

The rest of the stove is not bad but has some surface rust in spots where the paint was thin.

The stove sat in an unheated storage unit for some months prior to my buying it.

Overall its not bad but I just wanted to get the thing looking top shelf again.

Snowy
 
Snowy, google Forest Paint Co. and check out the FAQ page. It has some good info on using Stove Bright. You can also email Mike Jackson, the "Stove Bright" products manager. I believe you will need to remove all the old paint if you want to use the Stove Bright brand, but he may offer some ideas?
Mike -
 
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