I'm building a back-porch weight bench and am making an olympic barbell and weight setup (partly because I'm nuts, and partly because prices are nuts).
The bar will be on my Lanai (porch that is enclosed with screening) and will rust in the summer unless I do something with it. Bar is 7' long and 1.125 in diameter cold rolled steel. The two sleeves are 16" long, 2" diameter and hollow steel.
Is this something that can plate in my garage? I don't need it to look nice, just be rust-proof.
EDIT: Forgot to say that it's 1018 cold roll
POR-15? There are plating kits for hobbyists (Caswell?) that will let you electroplate nickel, etc, but that seems like overkill.
stainless ?
what industrial equipment would use something like that ?
food processing , medical , chemical ?????
OOPs , I thought you were looking to make a bar.....
We used good old brush-on Rustoleum on all the iron stairways and stuff around the asphalt plant I ran. Even in South Georgia sun and rain with no shelter it would keep stuff mostly rust free for a year. I think in a covered lanai any good paint finish will probably do fine. The biggest issue may be the coating thickness getting in the way.
Thanks for the replies everybody. Rustoleum is my backup plan but i'd like to do some sort of plating if possible. It looks like hot/cold bluing is out because i'd need to find a way to dip it in a container with boiling liquid.
Nickel or zinc appears to be possible for smaller parts but I'm not smart enough to figure out how much liquid and electricity I would need for this piece. I'll keep flipping through Caswell's site.
CrustyRedXpress (Forum Supporter) said:
It looks like hot/cold bluing is out because i'd need to find a way to dip it in a container with boiling liquid.
An 8'-long 4"-diameter pipe, split in half lengthwise, capped on the ends, and placed on/over a bed of charcoal?
I was gonna suggest Parkerizing, but then it does need to be submerged. But looks like Pete has a solution.
Even so, I've got to think a good quality paint is the easy answer here.
Check local powder coating prices?
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
Ha! I had gotten to the 4" diameter pipe, but was thinking PVC and never thought of bed of charcoal. Was hoping for something less labor intensive, but that would probably do it.
Blueing is a very minor form of rust prevention. It "works" for guns because they are generally kept protected and oiled. I would not bother going through that much trouble for something that barely works. If you have not done cold blue before, it works okayish, but would be a lot of work for something that big and you would be letting it sit long enough that the blueing solution would cause rust.
Paint the main part of the bar and wrap it in grip tape (like for a tennis racket) to protect the paint from sratches and wear where needed. Light spray on the ends for the weights and just occasionally respray as it wears off.
