Posts Tagged: maintenance tricks

Holiday Celebrations Lead to Maintenance and Clean-Up

Maintenance, clean up, and decorating often go hand-in-hand during the holidays!  We’re here to help with these steps as you’re cleaning and sprucing up around your house this season.  As a custom wrought iron company, we are here for any of your ornamental wrought iron needs, security doors, window guards, and more.  In the spirit of the season, we’d like to share a few tricks we’ve learned to help you clean and maintain your existing metal!

We receive many calls asking about repainting, painters, cleaning, and general maintenance of wrought iron work. I’d like to share a few tips that might help!

Tip #1: WD-40! I am sure this does not surprise many of you.  With it, you can wipe off the dirt and dust, giving it a fresh look!  Here is what we found works best: Using clean rags you don’t mind getting oily, wipe off your project before you start. You can either spray the rag or directly onto the wrought iron– I will leave that to you, it won’t hurt the hardware, so you don’t have to worry about that.  Next, using a clean rag, wipe the door again, wiping off as much of the oil as you can. This works on rusted products, too. The downside of the oil can be dirt clumping or clogging. It’s why wiping off as much excess oil as possible is important. If it does gather a lot of dirt or dust, just wipe it down again with a clean rag.  This might not work on all projects. If you have any concerns, give us a call or check with the manufacturer of your product. This is not a replacement to painting the metal piece, but has helped to stretch out repainting by a few years.

Tip #2: Painting your security screen doors.  Let me start off by stating: Water VS. Steel will rust. Check out my blog about rusting! Please keep in mind that steel will rust and that rust grows!. Powder and paint will also chip and wear over time. More than likely at some point, you will need to consider having you iron re-painted, especially the doors. Our projects are all either powder coated, rusted, and/or painted. If they have been powder coated, you will have to take them to a sandblaster and/or powder coat company to have it re-powdered. Now, let’s talk about the primer and paint.  We use a Rust-o-ileum primer under all of our doors and paint with an oil base paint. Oil base paint adheres best to metal, especially outdoors. Painting the door makes it less costly and easier to repaint. We are not painters and this information is only from our experience, nothing more.  If someone calls us to repaint a front door, we can do that, however we often refer to a paint company that knows how to paint the doors properly and this often saves you money.  Of course, you can easily paint your own door. We recommend an oil base paint. It is important that you do not brush or roll the perforated metal screening on our doors. It will clog the holes. If your door needs a fresh coat of paint feel free to give us a call and we are happy to help or point you in the direction of a reliable painter.

Tip #3: Greasing or oiling the hinges on the doors. When we install your door, we grease the hinges. However, over time, you might need to do it again. Besides the weight of the steel door, this is pretty simple to do. Lifting the door off the hinges is the hardest part, as is putting it back on. You should open your door to at least a 90 degree angle and simply lift it up to move it. We use white lithium grease, put some into the hinge, bottom or top, and then put the door back on the hinges. That’s it! Like I said, the most difficult part is lifting that door itself.

Tip #4: Rust finishes. Please, check out my article about rust and rust finishes! Simply put, rust continues to rust, forever! To help with that process, after we rust a door, we add an oil base clear coat. Our recommendation is to add a clear coat every couple of years. Some of our clients have said they only need to re-coat about every 5 years. I would imagine it depends upon the weather exposure. For doors at your home, we suggest watching to make sure it doesn’t start rusting onto your entry way.

I hope these tips are helpful. Please give us a call or send us an email if you have any questions– we are more than happy to help or find someone who can!

More tips to come about locks, levers, re-keying, and more!

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