Alternative To Lead Based Paint

[RameGoom]

Years ago I restored an old slicing machine. Made somewhere around 1919, by the "American Slicing Machine Co." - long since out of business. My dilemma was that the machine was painted glossy black, no doubt lead paint with more lead in it than a car battery. So if I tried to make it period-authentic, I'd have a problem finding lead based enamel. Could use acrylic, but I figured it wouldn't hold up to normal use.

Cast components were pretty rough:

So, I chose to powder-coat all the castings, which were iron and zinc. The place which did the work was having a real problem with out-gassing when the castings were heated in the powder coating process. Cast iron tends to soak up grease and oil, probably from contact with the food. So they had to do the project twice, but it turned out beautifully the second time. And powder coating is exceptionally rugged as well. I use it occasionally, and it can cut a piece of beef so thin you can see thru it and the finish is tough as nails. The guide shafts were made of chrome plated steel, chrome all worn off, so I replaced them with stainless steel. There were also some Inconel parts which I kept original.

Powder coating may have a place in coin op refurbishing, but I'm not sure where.

[mechanic]

Next time try Epoxy enamel most stores still carry it and its a lot harder than acrylics. Another is lacquer which can be had at most stores and comes in different colors. Then there's good old Testors hobby paint in spray cans or mix your own from the small bottles and stick in you own aerosol sprayer.

[Truchaos]

Don't be afraid to try POR15. You can get it in gloss and semi-gloss finish. It drys quite slowly so expect a long cure time and the brush marks smooth out quickly.

The stuff is pretty amazing. It wears like iron and sticks to a clean metal surface like it's welded to it.
No joke, if you get it on your hands and let it dry, it's not coming off until it wears off. Think one to two weeks.

I recently painted the brake back plates of my Jeep with POR 15. I dripped a little on the brake drum. I took the drum to work and bead blasted it with our high performance industrial bead blaster. It cleaned that drum down to the metal in less than a minute but it would not remove the POR15. It wore it a bit but it's still on the drum even after focusing the beads on the paint for as long as it took to clean the entire rest of the drum. I decided that if it's adhered that well to the drum, it can certainly be painted over.

[JPCass]

It's interesting to hear the description of POR-15. When I was recently stripping the layers of paint of my early Mills QT Firebird, everything came right off with regular paint stripper - except for the bottom layer of original factory paint, that was something really tough. It was starting to come off, but I just left it and to put new paint over - which I haven't yet finished, partly because I haven't decided on all the colors.

I decided to use oil paint, from Sherwin-Williams - who have some pretty good historical/period color selections.

The thing I'm trying to figure out is, did the machines have gloss or semi-gloss/satin finishes to begin with? Or if it varied by manufacturer and period, which is appropriate to mid-1930s Mills machines?




JP