Painting Metal Window Frames.

Fill_7

hi ppl,

recently bought a house that has old metal window frames. the old lady that previously owned the house had all the windows painted shut, bar the little ones at the top. being a fire hazard we decided to get these windows open, and susequently made a mess of the paintwork.....

we want to restore these windows, as being an old property i believe new upvc windows could ruin its appearance. so my question is how do i do it?

first of all i suppose i need to remove all the old paintork. theres 12 windows in the house! wont this take 4ever? is there an easy way to remove the paint, it comes away quite easy just chipping away at it but i seem to be leaving scratch marks on the metal and dont know if i am damaging it?

when (if ever) i have done this, am i right in thinking my next step is to wash it all down with turps, than apply a primer, then undercoat and then gloss?

any knowledge on this situation would be extremely welcome! :T

thanx in advance....

squeaky

Hiya

The best place to ask this is on the In My Home forum which includes DIY and so I'll move this post across for you.

Good luck!

Moss5

If they are galvanized steel, a special primer is required. If the existing paint is chipping off easily, I guess the correct primer was never used.

Old_No.7

Hi there, first of all, I'm so glad you've decided to keep the original windows! We have 2 crittall bay windows in our flat and we had them repainted (outside only) by our handyman as it was awkward to get to for us (needed scaffolding). I'm sure it can be done, our man wasn't a specialist, but did a very good job. It took him (and his dad) a long time though, and it cost a fair amount, but it was worth it to us.

I assume your windows would be crittall as well? I can't seem to find much on Google on how to do it yourself: i only researched companies that would do it for us, but am happy to give you that information. This website was v.helpful, I thought, look under Refurbishment for general information.
http://www.steelwindows.co.uk/

Good luck with it!