Pickling steel - or something else

I have some steel wall frames at the theater made from 1" square tube.  I don't want them to rust every time I put a fingerprint on them.

I painted one with a rattle can and it was not only time consuming, but I burned through 2 cans of paint because more than half of it went into the air as overspray.  It's also cheap paint and scratches easily.

I thought about gun bluing, but I also know that isn't very effective against moisture.

Is there some kind of chemical treatment I can spray on these?  Kind of like using phosphor compounds on aluminum?  Something that will convert the surface and make it more rust resistant.

Are they small enough to be sent out for powder coating?    

Painting on Rust-Oleum with a brush will probably use less paint than spray cans.   It tends to be self leveling so dries out pretty smoothly. 

In reply to jharry3 :

I used Rustoleum on a kit car chassis and it held up remarkable well. Better in fact that the bits I hit with POR-15. Pretty good for consumer grade stuff.  

4' x 8'

Incredibly tedious to paint with a brush, but it is a possibility.  Give a 1" brush to a volunteer I don't like with a can of rustoleum.  Powdercoating would cost thousands.  I was hoping for a squirt bottle of [insert product] that I could spray on for $20 and magically pickle it.

There are 11 of them and they look like this.

Brushing might be a pain, but brushing on tractor paint seems the way to go.

Or use a cheap Wagner paint gun.

Don't spray them, roll them and then touch up the corners with a brush. I bet you could do all of them in under an hour with a quart of paint. 

Would Ospho be appropriate?

We use paint gloves for commercial railings.  Use hand lotion 1st then rubber kitchen glove before putting on glove.  You stick hand in tray and wrap hand around bar and pull.  Super fast once you get hang of it.  Lots of drop cloths.......

Toot said:

We use paint gloves for commercial railings.  Use hand lotion 1st then rubber kitchen glove before putting on glove.  You stick hand in tray and wrap hand around bar and pull.  Super fast once you get hang of it.  Lots of drop cloths.......

Curtis, this is your calling. Rubber up and give 'em a sloppy old fashioned. 

Toot said:

We use paint gloves for commercial railings.  Use hand lotion 1st then rubber kitchen glove before putting on glove.  You stick hand in tray and wrap hand around bar and pull.  Super fast once you get hang of it.  Lots of drop cloths.......

With ospho or paint?  I guess either one.

That's a good tip.

Ever see a crew painting the big hi-tension wire towers in the old days?  They do a similar thing but they put on socks up to their shoulders.  They hug the pole and a rope lowers them down.  Every 6' or so they dip their arms into tubular "buckets" on their sides to reload with paint.  They do another section and by the time they get the whole way around, the first part is dry enough that they can do the bare spots where their chest was.

In reply to barefootcyborg5000 :

I'm thinking I should get Hot for Teacher involved.  Rawr.

 Make sure you clean the metal with acetone.

I use these small rounded end rollers for all of my metal painting. It gives a nice fine textured look and reaches into corners with no need for any brush work. Super fast and only takes 2 coats. I would go to Sherwin Williams and get some direct to metal oil based paint. It is fast drying and you can re-coat the same day. Edit: if you want, you can gently feather out the texture with a paint saturated foam brush.

Menards.com: Purdy® Jumbo Golden Eagle™ 4-1/2" x 3/8" High-Density Polyester Paint Roller Covers - 2 Pack

Menards.com: Purdy® Jumbo 12" Mini Paint Roller Frame

For something simple like that, we found that handing them to a company who powder coats industrial railings was way cheaper than decorative powder coaters. 

As long as we wanted white or black, they would slip it in with another bigger order and only charge us a few hundred.

Changing colours costs a lot because the booth has to be cleaned out.

The industrial guys usually have a dedicated line for black and another for white.

Penetrol can be used on bare metal to prevent rusting.  It comes in a can but I'd think you could pour it into a hand spray bottle (or just slop it on with a cheap brush.)  It should be available at most paint stores.

Ospho is good as a treatment before paint, but it leaves a gnarly, splotchy, yet very keyed up surface.

I think tung oil might be a good solution. Maybe blue the corners so it looks more like the rest of the metal, hit lightly with steel wool, then oil or wax. I did linseed oil and mineral spirits on my rusty truck, and it looked good, but was a little sticky to the touch. Maybe just turtle wax or the equivalent?

Random article I dug up, and only skimmed

These are just the frames and they'll never be seen by audience so I'm not overly concerned with appearance.  They'll also rarely see water other than humidity and possibly being loaded on a box truck during a rainy day.  They'll eventually be skinned with lauan, so the wood is more likely to be damaged than the steel if it ever sees water.

These frames were an investment that will hopefully be used for 20-30 years so I was just thinking they should have some coating so they don't get yucky.

So far it looks like paint is the way to go.  We have three powdercoating places in the area and all of them are blisteringly expensive.  I even have a good friend who works at one of them.  I asked him to quote me on powdercoating my van ladder and a roof rack and he said $2400.  Not a typo.  Two four zero zero.  Powdercoating would be great, but even if it were only $500, that doubles my investment and can't compare to $20 worth of alkyd paint that I already have in inventory.

I was just hoping for some chemical I could spray on that converts the surface into something that won't rust.

That's crazy expensive. 

Go buy some DuPont Imron and a respirator. 

Steelit In a spray can. Stuff is super durable. Super easy to use. Guys use it on their bonneville land speed frames and it holds up shockingly well. 

https://steel-it.com/products/polyurethane-aerosol

Or use some Gibbs. As long as it isn't being fondled like mad, or exposure to direct elements it'll hold up well.  Shoot some on, wipe it down with a microfiber. Doesn't leave a residue but impregnates the surface. Will need to be redone maybe once or twice a year depending on exposure, but if you can't get one wiped down in 2-3 minutes, I'd be shocked.  

https://gibbsbrandlubricant.com/