been painting

Some discoveries made while painting:
1. It's difficult to tell where you've painted if your paint is like your primer. Primer is flat white, and so is the paint. If I had hired someone to do the job, I'd be unable to check the work.

2. Latex paint doesn't do well over rust. Just a wild guess, but maybe the water content in Latex paint aggravates the rust problem. I had to switch to oil-based paint. We'll see how that goes.

3. Which leads to the next one: paint brushes aren't much good for painting small diameter rods. I tried. These were maybe 3/8-inch diameter rods. So I used the "sponge on a stick" type of "brushes." I had a whole bag of them of various widths. Must've been from Walmart. Works out good with the oil-based paint, because I simply throw away the used sponge-on-a-stick. It doesn't do well for corners and joints because in tight spots, all you can do is dab with the sponge. You can't brush it out as with a brush. I mean, I did use them for the whole job but the results aren't pretty at the joints. But that's ok. I mainly wanted to stop the rust, seal over it and make it look better (better looking than rust, that is). The oil-based paint is satin. I would've picked glossy, but they were out of those so I got the satin finish. Not bad. Better than flat finish for what I was painting.

The thing now has two coats of latex primer, one coat of latex paint, and one coat of oil-based paint. When I get some time, I'd like to give it yet another coat of oil-based paint.

Prior to painting I did go over the rust with a wire brush. Then a little sanding (I got tired of that quickly). Wipe down to remove dust. Then a coat of rust converter, sprayed on then wiped smooth and allowed to dry. Rust converter was re-applied anywhere rust reappeared after priming and after painting. With the oil-based anti-rust paint, I hope to NOT see rust peep out again. I am uncertain because I didn't use the primer the paint specified. So we'll see...