As a project for the summer I want to repaint the metal banister/railings leading from my floor to the ground as now all but one of the flats in my block are now privately owned rather than council owned we are now responsible for maintenance though the council would still be responsible for a share as they still retain ownership of one flat. There is no rust to be concerned about but the old paint is certainly well chipped and worn. So am looking to sand it to a reasonable condition but not spend that much time doing so, then priming and adding a final coat. So what grit paper? Will any primer do? What about final coat? This is an odd job for me to be taking on as last year when I finally finished redecorating, refurnishing the whole flat I vowed at 64 I would never ever need to touch a paint bruch, pasting table again in my life as I hated it.
From my experience it depends on how good you want the end result to be, a bare minimum would be to key the old paintwork using paper around 180 grit and slapping your finishing coat on. If you're not taking it back to bare metal you won't need a primer or undercoat.. Quick job would be keying the old paintwork and slapping on whatever gloss you want, longer job would be stripping it back to base with a chemical paint stripper à la Nitromores, priming with a primer suitable for metal, 3+ layers of undercoat, 180+ grit sanding to remove brush strokes and finishing with a gloss. If you're going the quicker route, i would, you might want to look at hammerite type gloss as although it's a bit more expensive the hammered finish does a better job of masking imperfection.
If you use something like smoothrite you don't need primer either IIRC. It's also very hard wearing and you can thin it down slightly using turps. Hammerite is the same, if you like the finish I wouldn't aim for perfection though. If you do that means basically bare metal etc etc. Clean and presentable is much easier
I think you will find the Nitomores is a shadow of it's former self and pretty rubbish now. Anyhoo I am looking for the quicker option. A bit of a sand to remove any loose chips etc and hopefully provide a key for the new paint. Like the idea of not having to use a primer. Clean and presentable is what I am looking for so will look at Hammerite and Smoothrite will be on my list of paint choices.
Forgot to say if the old paint if flaking in places you may want to give it a quick going over with a wire brush to remove the loose stuff before keying.
While Nitromores is now rubbish, Loctite 790, dissolves paint very very quickly. Its basically there gasket chisel in a different tin. Re did an only bench the other year, wire wool/brush to de flake the paint as corky said, sand 180/240 grit, Outdoor primer like red oxide, couple of coats then paint with something like Galvafroid which is an anti corrosion paint.
I don't think that I am going to go the strip the old paint off route just want to make the banister a bit more presentable. My banister is internal so I do not feel the need for red oxide though I am sure we called in red lead when I was on board HMS Bachante.
If you go for a full strip you are looking at a crap ton of work. Even with the best stripper in the world (which would be that aircraft stuff). It's massively involved and will take you forever. Plus when you are done using that you need to hose/wash everything down or it wrecks the paint going on. A bit hard on an internal stair case.. I would wire brush it to get rid of anything loose and any major rust. Then give it a light sanding just as a key and use either Smoothrite or Hammerite. Both can be applied to rust and both contain an inhibitor to cure it and stop it getting worse.
Unfortunately I was a daft wee laddie at the time and although I went all over the world on that ship I do not have one photograph as a memory. On one occasion we had around 200 dolphins slaying around the ship as we shifted along in a hurry to get I cannot remember where. Great times wasted on the youth.
Just use a wire wheel to get rid of flakes/loose paint and then use some hammerite direct to rust paint https://www.hammerite.co.uk/product/direct-to-rust-metal-paint-smooth-finish/
I am probably leaning more towards a hammered finish rather than smooth as it is more forgiving of any imperfections on the surface to be painted.
You might want to use a small roller if you are not spraying. I've found using a brush on rails takes forever. You will still need to touch the cracks and tight spots with a brush.
Way ahead of you on that score mate, I rarely use a brush these days so had already planned to buy a few more mini roller heads and a couple of small brushes.
I had to do a job on a house where the buyer wanted rails added between rails and painted. The house had a 3 story main living area with a raised partition, stairs, balconies running the length of the house on either side of the room, and an open walkway between them. We added several hundred rails and had to brush paint the whole lot.