How to Color a Metal Building

By Lacy Enderson

Overview

Adding paint to a metal building is easy. The most common factory metal coatings are organosola, plastisols, polyesters, silicone polyesters and fluorocarbons. All of these coatings can be recoated. Every recommended paint type comes in a variety of colors. You should have no problem finding the right color for you. Metal buildings are dimensionally stable with little to no cracking. They are a good product to paint. If you are thinking about adding color to your metal building, make sure to properly prepare the surface and select a good quality primer and paint.

How to Color a Metal Building

Step 1

Clean off all rust from your metal building using a steel brush. Power wash the outside with water to remove all chalk, grease and dirt. Household bleach removes mildew.
Step 2

Wipe the metal with a black cloth. If you see white chalk on the cloth, scrub it with a brush and rinse.

Step 3

Use a paintbrush and apply a thin coat of rust-inhibitive primer over all the rusted and bare metal areas. Let it dry for two hours. Reapply a second coat over the top of the first. Let the second coat dry.
Step 4

Cover the entire surface of the metal building with the same primer. Let the primer dry for two hours and then apply a second coat. One coat of primer over the spot priming is adequate, but for best results, use two coats.
Step 5

Cover the metal building with an acrylic soft gloss house paint, sold at all hardware and paint stores. Select the color you'd like to coat your building with and apply it with a paintbrush, a roller or an airless sprayer. If you use a sprayer, use a .021 tip.
Step 6

Allow the first coat of colored paint to dry completely before applying the second coat. It normally takes two hours if the weather is warm.

Skill: Moderately Easy
Ingredients:
Steel brush
Hose
Bleach
Black cloth
Scrub brush
Paint brush
Rust-inhibitive primer
Acrylic house paint
Roller
Sprayer
.021 tip
Tip: Cover the metal building with a colored paint the same way you would cover wood or stucco.
Warning:
Paint will not stick to a chalky surface.
If you use bleach to clean the metal, it must be rinsed off.
Do not apply primer in weather less than 50 degrees F.

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