Help, Repainted wood stove and now it's blochy?

[xxgreg21xx]

Hey guys. Great site! Anyways, I bought a used Napoleon 1402 insert which I will be trying to heat a small ranch with next winter. It had some very slight surface rust on it so I figured I would give it a nice paint job. Everywhere there was a some rust I used green scotch bright pads and got it to where it was nice clean metal. Cleaned the entire stove with a paint prep cleaner. Now I sprayed the stove with wood stove paint and everywhere it was bare metal it's a different shade of paint. It's almost as if in those spots the flat black paint is slightly shiny? It doesn't matter how thick you spray the paint either. I even tried sanding it back down (not to bare metal just scuffing it) and re spraying and same thing. Anyone run into this before? I mean it's not the first time I've painted something I'm pretty handy but this one's got me stumped. Am I going to have to sand the entire stove down to bare metal to get it to look even? Any ideas? Thanks for the help!

Sincerely,
Greg

 

[fossil]

Assuming you're talking about paint made expressly for stoves, you need to build a few fires in it and cure that finish. It may look a little blotchy now, but if you did good prep and painting, curing it with heat should even it all right out to a nice matte black. Rick

 

[summit]

you may have to buff it all down. we rebuild and refinish many stoves here, and with steel stove, you often have to take it down to bare metal in quite large spots to get it to not look blotchy. sometimes, you just have to get a good scuff job, and a few extra sprays will get in the grooves... of coure you could always use stove polish, which is like a wax for your stove. it actually produces quite a nice finish, but smokes way more than the paint when you heat it the first time, and can leave a black residue on your hands for quite a while afterwards whenever you touch the metal. cast stoves paint up a little better, because there are already larger pores in the casting (and often built in texture and shapes) to cover rusty spots which make a blemish. a stove made of steel is much smoother, thus any little corrosion shows when you finish it back up (although i think they work better than cast).

 

[BrotherBart]

Light a couple of fires in it. It will even out.

 

[North of 60]

Yep as BB and Fossil said. Get the stove cranking a few times and the blotches will go away to an even flat black. Just open the windows and wait for the smoke detectors to chime in. Just tell the wife you are doing a test. :cheese:
N of 60

 

[firefighterjake]

Hmmm . . . this brings up a good point . . . would most folks go with paint or polish to "freshen" up the look of their stove?

 

[Later]

Polish has always feathered in better for me but be sure to wear gloves!

 

[johnn]

painted my insert before this season. Two cast iron doors,,plate steel body also taken down to bare metal in spots.I used paint from a quart rather than the aerosol, which was thinned down and sprayed with a low overspray pressure cup sprayer. There were three different finishes between the cast, plate, and bare metal spots, which all evened out after the season. The cast doors and their sandpaper texture, have a slightly different more appealing flat finish , which I feel is mainly due to the way the cast texture reflects light. Though the plate finish evened out, you can still see where the spots were in the right lighting and at the right angle, depends on how hard you look! Even with good feathuring its just difficult to get an unprimed area to blend with a coated surface and it not be noticed when you know where to look!!Consider this a primer coat and redo after next season, if you just cant live with it. I used an orbital sander with 80 grit to get my less than desired effect,, and am not sure that scotch brite would effectively feather in the bare spots and your finish may be more noticable.

 

[SmokeyStover]

Hmmm . . . this brings up a good point . . . would most folks go with paint or polish to "freshen" up the look of their stove?

Polish will burn off faster than paint. If you want your stove to look really sharp you may have to apply the polish 2 or 3 times per season. Also once a stove has been polished it's very difficult to get a good paint job as the polish will seal the surface of the steel or cast.

As to the original question, stove paint must be applied in several very light coats. We have painted hundreds of stoves in my shop over the years and found out that the thicker the coats of paint, the faster it will burn off. Often times the paint will come off in flakes the first time the stove is fired.

We use fine sandpaper and steel wool to prep the surface then use 4-5 light coats of paint about 30 minutes apart. The last is when you try to get the finished look. Make sure you keep the can 12" away from the surface. You will also need to move the stove somewhere where the overspray won't do damage. It's pretty much impossible to get a good paint job if you rush it or have to keep the can too close to the stove for fear of painting the walls and curtains along with the stove.