Yep, need more info. Generally, good clean bare metal- any good DTM primer will work depending on what is going over it. Metal that may have some rust- etch primer. I have used NAPA stuff (Acme) with good results.
Viking Paint, Bloomington Mn., has cheap epoxy primer, made in house, about 1/2 price of the big names, google em up. They ship to your door.
I’m an epoxy fan on bare clean steel. And I’m pretty sure Pour 15 isn’t recommended for bare steel. It uses the rust as its primer. I’ve seen it peel right off bare steel.
My body guy buddy just told me the other day that if its temporary touch ups to clean metal use cheap self etch, if its a permanent layer use epoxy. Do not use POR, it is a fancy scam for real body work. Maybe for an old chassis with little prep but I'd just brush on rustoleum at that point and save some coin.
Nothing involving paint is inexpensive these days. The cheap stuff that used to work pretty well is pretty much garbage now. A gallon of Rustoleum that used to cost $25 a gallon is now over $50 and its not anywhere near as good as it was when I could buy it for $25. The Rustoleum paint and primer still works pretty well on frames and under body not exposed to direct sunlight. The direct sunlight will cause it to fade pretty quickly. Straight primer does not offer rust protection for very long, it was intended to be painted shortly after the primer dried. Epoxy primer seems to grab a hold of bare, clean metal a bit better then ordinary primer, but the price jumps up pretty fast. I had my truck painted in 2022. The acrylic urethane paint supplies required to paint it, at my buddies body shop cost, was $328 and change. The same products, the same volume, and the same color, at his cost, is now just under $1,000. List price for an off the street customer would be several hundred dollars more, if they would even sell it to the customer without a body shop license these days.
The P O R in POR15 stands for "paint over rust". It does not stick to shiney bare metal. Beads up like fish eye. Use it as it is supposed to be used and it does it's job well. It's excellent for underside of a body on anything driving on the salt at Bonneville. But is not good for external stuff your not going to paint as it has ZERO UV protection. The sun burns it off pretty quickly. It will eventually disappear completely. Dave
I've got some metal work that needs to be done on my '41. I'm new at this so progress is going to be very slow. Is there a primer in a spray can that would work good for protecting the bare metal until I get around to doing the finishing body work?
I will second what @rusty valley says. Viking paints in Bloomington Mn sells Tenaco epoxy primer and this stuff is fantastic. Squeeges resells the stuff under their own label for about double.
Not set up for painting and currently don't own a gun. Would love to be able to just wheel it over to the paint booth whenever I have a 4"x4" area of bare metal that needs to be primed, but that's not going to happen.
I've been using Tamco primers. As good as the name brands, and a lot cheaper. And you have a few options (slo-dry epoxy, faster epoxy, high builds, etc.) They ship, sometimes for free.
Often the spray can primers available at your local hardware store are a waist of time, protection wise. Most are too thinned out to be effective anymore. Buy a gallon or a quart of primer that can be brushed on, or rolled on with a small paint roller. Be aware the drying times on most store bought paint these days is several hours at above 50 degrees. Without the proper drying time above the lowest temp listed on the can, the primer is less effective. Once completely dried, the currently available brushed or rolled on primer is effective in wet conditions for only a few months now, instead of the longer time frame it used to be effective for. If you can protect the primer from weather conditions, it buys you a bit longer life, buy not years long, like the old stuff was.
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