The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop hot rolled steel bed

My friend has a sheet metal shop and we made a bed out of hot rolled steel for my 49. My question is, what type of prep work is needed with this type of surface before painting with apoxy primer?

Most removal of mill scale involves sand blasting, which will likely cause warpage, or an acid wash (muriatic, hydrochloric, sulfuric, etc....) which if not removed in its entirety will cause adhesion problems with paint. Hindsight and all that good stuff, why didn't you use cold rolled, or was this some steel he had laying around?

MPandC, yes,you and correct,that is what he had and it was free and if its free, its for me. So a good muratic acid wash and then another wash with baking soda and water, will that work?

I'm no expert on the subject, so perhaps some online research will yield some more definitive answers for you. I believe they call it pickling (removing the scale) but I do know that soda blasting is not a good mix for paint adhesion either, so your baking soda suggestion would also need a cleaning. Where the baking soda will likely neutralize the acid, I believe a good bath using Ivory liquid and scotchbrite will then neutralize/clean off the soda. But again, please verify with some research, I have not done this personally to speak with any firsthand knowledge.

For what it's worth, I just asked this question of the owner of SPI where I get my epoxy from. My concern was if there is the same problem using washing soda (which is baked baking soda)in the electrolysis process as with soda blasting.
He told me not to worry they react with the metal differently and Washing soda is safe to use (with SPI epoxy) though it might still be a good idea to wash with a bit of Dawn and water followed by wax and grease remover prior to paint.

He also told me in the past to make sure to remove any acid while its still wet. If it is allowed to dry to reapply the acid (phosphoric in my case) and let it reactivate the residue in the pores of the metal then wash/neutralize with plenty water.
I followed that with a shop vac blow dry to minimized flash rust which worked well in my situation. (no rust even after three days in the enclosed garage.)