who has had luck painting their aluminum trailer?

[bronco]

The aluminum sheets i bought were highly oxidized and after hours trying to wetsand one sheet i realized there are some oxidized stains that dont seem to want to come out. As much as i love the shiny metal look I dont want to spend more time polishing it. I was thinking of just putting it all on and painting it later. Does anyone see a problem in me doing that? At this point it just seems like a quicker fix and i have had some paint experience. I'm sure i'm not the only one that's been frustrated with this issue. I even went as far as using heavy grit nuvite on the metal after wetsanding with 400 grit sandpaper and it doesnt want to take the stains out. Thank you for any insight. (or sanity!)

[t-vicky]

I had the same thing on my first trailer. Ended up DA sanding with about 100 grit & spraying it with alumn paint. I had the skins all cut out & trimed but not on the trailer yet. Worked real good.

[Mark McD]

Use a self etching primer like zinc chromate(ask your paint supplier what type of primer to use with the type of topcoat you wish to use), after power washing and prior to painting and it will last as long as the trailer.

[wannabefree]

Ditto the zinc chromate. Aluminum oxidizes so quickly that regular paint never adheres well.

[BrwBier]

Before you paint you could try one more thing. Mine was oxidized also and I tried everything I could find and it never looked like I wanted. Then one day I found this some where on this forum.
http://kirkhammotorsports.com/manual2/bodyfinishing/bodyfinishing.shtml
It takes a while to do, I won't kid you about that, but it dosn't take long to realize that it will work. At least it did for me. I could never get the finish even, you know more polished in one spot than in another. Now my trailer looks almost great, it will always need some work and it will never look like the car in the web site but it looks good enough for me to be proud I did it. Its worth a shot and can always be painted over.
Brwbier

[bronco]

Man thank you for all of the great info and support. Zinc cromate sounds like the way to go definately.
And t-vicky i like the convenience of doing the sheets before the install for the ease factor. It would be nice not to have to do a bunch of masking before spraying. What sort of aluminum paint did you wind up using on yours?

[kennyrayandersen]

Before you paint you could try one more thing. Mine was oxidized also and I tried everything I could find and it never looked like I wanted. Then one day I found this some where on this forum.
http://kirkhammotorsports.com/manual2/bodyfinishing/bodyfinishing.shtml
It takes a while to do, I won't kid you about that, but it dosn't take long to realize that it will work. At least it did for me. I could never get the finish even, you know more polished in one spot than in another. Now my trailer looks almost great, it will always need some work and it will never look like the car in the web site but it looks good enough for me to be proud I did it. Its worth a shot and can always be painted over.
Brwbier

Yeah, that’s Tom Kirkham – I went to school with him – nice guy – they do some REALLY high-end work there – Aluminum-bodies 427 replicas etc. Stunning!

[bronco]

The brushed finish is nice. It's always cool to see a company tell the customer how they could do it themselves or bring it in to them and have it done. The sides would take the longest for me to do being 4x10 sheets but the roof pieces would'nt be too bad to do. I imagine the 120 grit would be able to take some serious oxidation out. Is the upkeep much different with brushed vs. polished? Thanks for the help. kevin

[kennyrayandersen]

The brushed finish is nice. It's always cool to see a company tell the customer how they could do it themselves or bring it in to them and have it done. The sides would take the longest for me to do being 4x10 sheets but the roof pieces would'nt be too bad to do. I imagine the 120 grit would be able to take some serious oxidation out. Is the upkeep much different with brushed vs. polished? Thanks for the help. kevin

I think too often the customer doesn't understand why stuff costs so much. If you look at that process you start to realize the number of hours that go into something like that. Certainly the same could be said for a teradrop. It takes a lot of time to put one together so anybody making them has got to charge decent money for them or it just won't be worth it. People tend to thing stuff should be really cheap, but quality is never free.

I think the brushed finish will be like any other -- if you take car of it an are careful and touch it up as required you could probably keep it good looking for years. If you don't take care of it, in no time at all it will be looking rather shabby.

[ZendoDeb]

Most aluminum you buy - sheets, tube, whatever - is anodized. Sanding it exposes the base metal, which can cause heavy metal poisoning just from handling it. If you handle it enough. It doesn't take as much as you think, and in any event heavy metal poisoning isn't something to fool around with.

I wouldn't use the zinc chromate on aluminum. I do use it on bronze and stainless. Try METAL PREP NO. 79.

Check out Aircraft Spruce - they have a section on preparing aluminum for paint. Complete with all the chemicals you need to use to etch the aluminum before painting.

Or Jamestown Distributors also has some stuff on preparing aluminum. The 2-part paint companies may have a preferred pretreatment. For example, Awlgrip has Alumiprep 33.

The mast of most sailboats is aluminum - mine is an aluminum extrusion 54 ft long. It gets banged by lines, is exposed to the Florida sun, and bird droppings, etc. After prep it was painted with 2-part linear polyurethane. Seems to have held up OK. (Not all of mine was painted, I admit)

[BrwBier]

Most aluminum you buy - sheets, tube, whatever - is anodized. Sanding it exposes the base metal, which can cause heavy metal poisoning just from handling it. If you handle it enough. It doesn't take as much as you think, and in any event heavy metal poisoning isn't something to fool around with.

This info comes from where?

[bronco]

I have'nt heard about the aluminum being harmful but this is the first time i've really worked with it too. How much exposure are we talking about? Reason i'm asking was after all the wetsanding i did my hands were pretty black and i wore gloves after i realized how messy it was getting.

[kennyrayandersen]

I have'nt heard about the aluminum being harmful but this is the first time i've really worked with it too. How much exposure are we talking about? Reason i'm asking was after all the wetsanding i did my hands were pretty black and i wore gloves after i realized how messy it was getting.

maybe if you snort it?

Lead OK check -- Beryllium OK Check -- never heard about aluminum being toxic and I've been working with aluminum planes for nearly 25 years -- I must have missed something!

[BrwBier]

The upkeep of my brushed finish is pretty easy. I think it is easier than a polished finish because you just keep going in the same direction until it looks like the rest. Polished was too hard for me to get an even look without buying an expensive buffer. I just keep a scotch bright pad with me and if I have 5minutes or a half hour I just keep working at it. The more you do with the scotch bright pad the better it looks. So far in year two of my brushed finish there is no problem taking care of it.
Brwbier

[bronco]

After doing alot of thinking I've decided to just put it all together clean and prep and paint. With painting I've done my share of it but spending time cleaning and polishing aluminum has definately made my mind up for me. If it was a one time thing i would be fine with that but it sounds like alot of upkeep. I'll just have to be an admirer of all your shiny aluminum trailers.
Thanks for everyone's help and info.