Sand Blasting and Painting Implements and Trailers

[chim]

We have over 20 small trailers at work, most are 12' long 5K-7K tandem axle utility trailers. A couple are "landscape" trailers with fold-down ramps, and there are a few deckovers. Operating year round in PA, keeping paint on them is a problem. They get salt and grit-blasted following pickup trucks. It's worse in winter with the salt, but happens pretty much year 'round.

We refinished and re-furbed a good number of them about 5 years ago. One was blasted and powder coated, most were cleaned up mechanically (wire brushes on angle grinders, scrapers, needle type descalers) and done with Rustoleum primer and paint. A couple were done with a two-part PPG AUE coating recommended by the owner of a local body shop. The ones done with PPG held up much better than anything else we tried. It seems strange, but it is applied to bare solid metal. There's a curing time and we typically keep the trailer out of service for at least a week.

Our trailers get the snot beat out of them. I came up with a few mods to protect the more delicate parts, and we switched to LED lights. Repair costs went down. The two main problems remaining were paint and damage to fenders. We will be replacing quite a few trailers because of the age of our fleet. To that end, we had three trailers custom made by three different vendors to see what worked for us. The first wasn't satisfactory at all. The second was closer.

After months of review we had a third trailer made by a local shop. Taking all known concerns into consideration, we may have hit it pretty well with this one. It is a deckover (eliminates "tender fenders"), torsion axles (springs, bushings and equalizers have been an issue in the past) all LED lighting, and had it hot-dip galvanized after fab and have galvanized wheels. The galvanized finish was only a few hundred bucks more than paint, and we're hoping that solves one of our main problems.

 

[blackrams]

Would love to galvanize this Trailer but, I know of no facility capable of that.

Rams

 

[Egon]

Think about undercoating the trailer as soon as the paint dries.

 

[GMIslander]

http://daamgalvanizing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Galvanizing_Costs_Less_Lasts_Longer2015.pdf

 

[swines]

You need to get the type of primer and paint used in writing from them. If they use an epoxy primer they can put an acrylic enamel, or two part urethane over the epoxy primer. The two part urethane will be more expensive, but will last longer. If they're using an acrylic enamel (typical "industrial equipment paint"), then ask them to put a hardener in the paint. The hardener is only 5% in the volume of paint being used. The paint needs to be thinned 10% to 15% to have the correct level for spraying, so what you typically do is put the hardener into the thinner to get it to the final volume before adding it to the paint.

What you might consider is using is Eastwood 2K Ceramic Chassis Paint. I've used it on several tractor projects and it is much harder than either acrylic enamel or a standard 2k paint.

 

[strum456]

It sounds like you're going to have a lot of $$$ tied up in the project. Considering the cost of the trailer and the project overall, at least 2 coats epoxy primer will protect your investment. Single stage urethane would be best on top of the epoxy, but it will be not be cheap. If it is just rust you are trying to combat, 2 coats of epoxy will do it. You could save some money on the paint, with the understanding that it will eventually fade and chip. This may be acceptable to you though, because the epoxy primer will keep the rust at bay.

My rule of thumb is that if it is worth doing at all, it is worth using epoxy primer. My time is too valuable to waste messing around with Rustolium, POR-15 or anything similar, just to have rust coming back through in a couple years. For projects where cosmetics aren't as important, I may go cheap on the paint, but never the primer!

I use Southern Polyurethanes Epoxy Primer. It is simply the best, at any price point.

 

[chim]

Here's where ours was done:

Industries - Industries/Services - Transportation

 

[blackrams]

Some great information contained within the responses. I sincerely appreciate all the responses. Learning a lot and will try to remember to ask all the right questions when I get to Nashville tomorrow morning. I guess we'll see.

"There's a sucker born every minute" is a phrase closely associated with P. T. Barnum, an American showman of the mid-19th century, although there is no evidence that he said it. Early examples of its use are found instead among gamblers and confidence men.

Let's hope this isn't applicable this time. Thanks again.

Rams

 

[blackrams]

Visited the facility today and dropped the trailer off. All paint and primer will be Rustoleum, the options are Red, Black and there's an off white. The trailer is currently white (at least what paint is still there is white). Thought I wanted to go back with the off white but, thinking I'm going to go ahead and go with the Black. Looked at the equipment and facility. Clean and organized. I can not comment on the type or quality of the equipment since I don't know squat about sand blasting and very little about paint. But, I feel confident enough in the organization after seeing the facility and some of their work that this will work out well for me.
The organization was a mobile sand blasting contractor that has now decided to have a fixed based facility and get off the road. It is a building large enough that it will hold several CONEXs and I was able to back in and have enough room to easily maneuver my truck and goose neck with out any problems. From what I saw, they have a huge number of CONEX boxes they are working on.

Looked into the galvanizing option, appears to be way out of my budget currently but, maybe some day.

Rams

 

[Industrial Toys]

I have had stuff sandblasted and painted for years now. In other words, it's a yearly ritual. My trailer hitch on my 08 GMC started to rust quite quickly. Twice, I removed it, had it sandblasted, painted it with tremclad and baked the paint. It just rusted again. Not sure what to make of this.

So although I have no issue with blasting and painting implements, I have serious reservations about spending any money on something that is already rusted and will be exposed to further road salt.