What the HELL is going on with Rustoleum?

I know that something weird happened to Krylon, ended up being mostly vehicle and no pigment at all, then got dropped from nearly every shelf in New England, but now Rustoleum ? ! ? !

No matter how long or little time you give after the first coats, it ALWAYS craizes over on the next coats. If waited one day, two, three, four. ALWAYS makes a mess of what almost looked decent the first time around.

Unfortunately it takes SO damned long to dry, that you always find a thin area that needs more paint long after it's "dried."

Anyone work for them? Anyone have a clue as to why they now SUCK so much ? ! ? ! Anyone know what the Hell ever happened to Krylon and if they're ever gonna fix their formula and come back?

Very, VERY frustrated here and sick and tired of having to paint and ruin and strip and paint again every little bracket on this damned car ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

TC

 

Sell the sizzle and the steak sells itself. Rustoleum doesn't even have to sell the sizzle very hard. They have that enviable situation where the company name has become a generically accepted term for a product.
SEM is a good alternative source

 

Blame the EPA...

R-

 

You think they're bad, try the Ace Hardware brand.

 

Isn't it usually recoat within 1 hour or 7 days?

 

Find a free household oven on CL. Buy a cheap HF powder coater. Powder all your brackets. It will last longer anyway.

 

Bingo! Can't just do it like we always did anymore... F'N EPA.

 

I've been using a bunch of Rustoleum of late, painted large sections of a 30 model A with spray can silver and did a 13'X35' out door wall job and no problems! Maybe you got a bad, or real old batch?

 

That is exactly the case. I have always followed this rule and had no issues. The couple of times that I have forgotten exactly how many days ago I shot something and recoated it, the wrinkle finish reminded me that I didn't wait long enough.

Also, if you wipe the old finish clean with wax and grease remover before recoating you reduce your chance of wrinkle.

Non-catalyzed paint is mostly garbage anyway, but when you have no other choice you have to take the bad with the good.

As far as dry time goes, I've been using the taller silver cans of the INDUSTRIAL grade Rustoleum which dries faster and actually seems to be tougher.

 

Hey, Rustoleum and the like are not for automotive use actually.....It is ok where it is just used as a protective measure but rarely very good as a finish on the outer body.
You can speed it up using a 20 % mix with laquer thinner....
but still it is not Automotive finish quality.
I see however they are selling black laquer and a clear that I have not tried,so there may be some that is OK as a finish on outer body parts........
works great on lawn and patio furniture.....

 

I use acrylic enamel hardener in Rustoleum and it wives a really nice hard finish that will last a long time outdoors. You have to stir the paint thoroughly if it is to be brushed or sprayed, and you have to shake it if it is a rattle can, but I'm sure you knew that.

 

EPA= crap paint

 

Thirty years ago when I painted the frame of my first rod with rustoleum, I let it dry (harden) for a week.
I would do the same today.
A couple years ago I used Ace spray bomb paint on my current ride,
No problems with either paint.

 

It used to be wait seven days, now they say that it's OK to re-coat in 48 hours. I went by the new guidelines and suffered for it.

Probably best to treat it like the old stuff and ignore what's on the new labels, huh?

Thanks for the advice and letting me rant a bit. Just SO damned disappointed. They're only under fender and bumper brackets, but I still wanted a nice finish on them.

 

I had a retail paint store for a lot of years and Rustoleum was my only line of spray paint,,it was a great product until the EPA decided that the world would be a better place if they halted certain chemicals in spray cans.

A lot of problems with spray paint started when the EPA ban the use of fluorocarbons used as propellent in 1978.

From then until now several propellents have been subject to the same scrutiny. HRP

 

Valspar paint is the new new !

 

Ah, they ruined Valspar too!!
I LOVED that stuff and swore by it. But when I painted my wheels this May I bought a couple cans of dark red. It went on beautiful but it rubs off pretty easy, took forever to dry, and flakes/scratches really easy. Best I can tell, the new "sprays at any angle" cans are junk and they must have changed the formula to make it work with the new nozzle/pickup??

The Rustoleum "appliance" epoxy is still fantastic, but I've only seen it in black, white, and almond.

 

I have been using the OSH stuff for years with no problems (cheap too)! And I am a shitty painter, but it still looks good!

 

Interesting post...
I have only been using a little rattle paint recently, but all I will use is Krylon....as I love how it drys so fast, and takes second coats so well...
Hmmmm...maybe I better check it out....

 

I've been using Rustoleum Satin Black for the small chassis items for years with no problem. I sprayed a couple of parts this afternoon and they came out great. Don't know about the glossier Rustoleum paints.

 

Right on. My son used Rustoleum satin black for painting the risers on the roof of his house. 6 years later with harsh envirnment (those horrible San Jose, Ca. winters!) and they are still darkest satin black.

My F100 running boards looked terrible, so my wife mixed up some canned satin black and masked and shot them. (temporary fix)

That was 2 years ago, those boards still look great. (she thinned it with MEK, seemed to work better than acetone.)

 

Try Rusoleum oil based in a can and put it in a spray gun thinned a bit. You can use a low cost gun like an HF hvlp. I use an old Iwata RP gun and the paint levels and coats very well. It's also much more economical than rattle can. I use the disposable cups from HF and clean up is quick and painless. The oil pain takes awhile to dry but it's worth the durability. Dont forget to use a respirator in any case.

 

I dunno... I've painted a bunch of stuff Hard Hat Red (aka High Performance Red) and Hard Hat Flat Black. No problem at all.
I just bought a brand new can of Machine Gray for a little Craftsman 109 lathe restoration, and didn't have a single problem either.

I degrease everything with Brake Kleen and let it dry thoroughly.

Then I give the part a light coat just to get a little dusting on the parts, and let it dry for about 20 minutes.
Then I give it a medium coat to fully cover the whole thing. There are usually areas missed when I do this. And it's not a heavy coat--it juuuuust covers everything.
I let that dry 20-30 minutes.
When it's dry, it looks dry... meaning, it looks dried out... a slight texture to it... not flat, but it has that texture flat paint has.
Then I come back with the final coat--As I'm laying it on, you can see the new coat cover the second coat, and lay it on until the part looks wet.

Once the whole thing looks wet, stop painting. Four hours later (or less depending on how bright the sun is that day), and the parts are good to go.

-Brad

 

Don't use that shit on a car. The PO (flipper) sprayed out my '57 with it six months ago and now rust is bleeding through everywhere. The only good thing is the crap comes off fairly easily but so much rust has formed under it that it's a bitch to sand to clean metal.

If your spraying a car, do everyone a favor and use "real" paint. Fuck that shit.

 

I rebuilt the front suspeiton on my 52 Chevy earlier this summer. A lot of elbow grease scraping, wire brushing, and soaking in kerosene to get all the grease off. I primed and painted it with Rustoleum. It was labeled as "Performance" but I liked it because it came in a can about 50% larger than typical at a good price, picked it up a Lowes. It was soft at first, you could scratch it off with your finger nail, but after it fully cured it's pretty dang durable. I liked it and would use it again.

 

That's what I was thinking. Why don't you just get yourself a decent gravity feed paint gun and use real paint? If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right.

I would only use rattle cans on stuff that I don't really care about and will stay indoors.

I know....that isn't what you asked,but it always puzzles me.

 

Yup, I have no problem with it either.... AND I don't have a hardon for the EPA.

They're just protecting us from the nasty crap that used to poison us, like leaded paint. Sure, that makes manufacturer's products less good, but they only stay that way if the manufacturer doesn't re-formulate to make a good product that ALSO doesn't poison us. I blame the manufacturer for not adapting to the changes in the world.

 

Weird, Ace brand is the only one I use any more. Never have an issue with it. 10 times better than Rustoleum. Plus they have larger cans for the same price.

 

Not trying to be a Rattle can salesman but I think it has it's places. As with any paint you use, it's all in the prep work.

I had some old strap metal lawn chairs that were my grandpas. I stripped them and wire wheeled them to bright shiny new metal. A couple good coats of primer and several good coats of rattle can enamel paint. They've been outside for 10+ years. The sun has faided the paint some but other than that they are holding up fine and still look good.

As for now I'll still consider it "real" paint. Although, I did recently get a paint gun kit on Autobody Tool Mart so I hope to start messing around with it and shooting better stuff.

 

Crappy, lazy prep. work, plain and simple. Rust didn't form under the paint, it was already there and just painted over. Regardless of how good or bad Rustoleum is or isn't, I pretty much guarantee poor prep. in your case, actually very poor.