How to prevent rust on bedframe brutus?

Hello. I'm a cheap bastard and am in the process of making a single-tier brewstand out of metal bedframes. It's actually coming along pretty well, but I'm worried that it is going to rust even though it will be stored in my garage. How to I prevent that? It has a brown color to it now. Do I have to sand that off? Or can I just paint over it with engine block paint? Does it need primer, first? Any advice appreciated.

I built my brew frame out of old bed frames and bolts. Personally I am going to embrace the rust as an "oxidized finish".

I built my Brutus out of 2x2 inch mild steel tubing. I painted it with high-temp primer then with high-temp BBQ grill paint. I can tell you that kind of paint is inadequate; it's rusting through the paint in high wear areas such as the top where your keggles sit.

I'm going to need to strip it and repaint it in the spring when it warms up again. Any high gloss enamel paint will probably do for the everything but the top. I'm not sure what to do with the top part. Maybe automotive paint of the sort used for headers might hold up.

I'd wire brush it, then use some rust converter and a coat of high-temperature enamel.

I used high temp rustolium (sp?) spray paint on my stand. It seems to do OK but I still get rust rings below the kegs (nothing you can see when the kegs are on). I've repainted it several times over the years (didn't bother to sand, just painted over the existing). One day soon I'm planning on getting it powder coated.

My stand is built from bedframe and after a about 5 batches on it over the last few months, it's holding up well. You MUST take all the previous paint off all the way down to bare metal, then apply some spray paint sold specifically for car exhaust parts. The only spot that is slightly rusting is where the kegs sit and run on the paint.

try that rustolium paint that converts rust to primer.. i've used it on my jeep and it seems to be holding up... the floorboard had holes from the rust and i just sprayd it with that and the holes stop spreading. it's been 3 years since i've sprayed it...

It's probably going to rust anyway. I would spend my money and time on brewing more beer and embrace the rust.

If you are truly worried, you could wipe it down with olive oil when it is still hot and season it like a cast iron pan or a nicer ($$$) smoker

Use por-15 it is a rust encapslator ( Black ) and you can paint right over the rust and it will stop the rust and it is hard as a nail & holds up well to heat.
Owned & ran body shop for the past 30 years.

Bobby_M said:

My stand is built from bedframe and after a about 5 batches on it over the last few months, it's holding up well. You MUST take all the previous paint off all the way down to bare metal, then apply some spray paint sold specifically for car exhaust parts. The only spot that is slightly rusting is where the kegs sit and run on the paint.

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+1...

From my airframes mechanic days, here's what we did. Strip the paint down to the bare metal. We had some serious paint stripper that blistered paint off of metal in a matter of minutes (we called it "baby ****" because that's what it looked like), but I don't know what's on the market today and available to the public. But if it's powerful, you'll need appropriate safety gear because it will burn a hole right through your skin or eye. Then take a fine grit metallic sand paper and sand the whole thing down just to give it a "rough" surface (also remove any rust spots). Then wipe the whole thing down with 90% isopropyl alcohol, let it dry and primer it with an appropriate primer. We used a zinc chromate primer, but you'll need something for high heat. Let it dry, then paint it with an appropriate paint (engine paint, etc.)... and maybe a second coat. That should last a long time.

Otherwise, if you're not that concerned with getting rust, then you don't need to go through all that trouble.