Painting fluorescent fixtures

[AngryHorse]

I'd go with the three 'S' s,....., Sand it, and Slap on the Spray paint!, it's only a light fixture after all!

[FrontSideBus]

Well this also applies to me if you’re going down that road:

A grinder and paint, makes me the welder I ain’t

[fluorescent]

I'd go with the three 'S' s,....., Sand it, and Slap on the Spray paint!, it's only a light fixture after all!

I often start the job with that attitude, however once I start, it has to be done perfect and I end up spending hours on it!

[RobTDCI]

I use a detail sander for the main sanding followed by manual sanding for the awkward bits and usually finish off by hand sanding. The GEC Genalux had such a bad case of rust and was large enough to be able to use a belt sander but that's real heavy duty. The other important thing is to ensure the item being sprayed and the area is free from dust before spraying. I usually do this by vacuuming the item initially, followed by a blast with compressed air and then a final wipe down with a damp, lint free cloth. The other thing that can ruin the finish is flies landing in your fresh paint, I had that today with something I was spraying!

[TheSOXMania]

The exact same way I'm doing my Amber Minor gear tray... sand the everloving fugg out of it until you reach clean, bare metal, then either use radiator enamel or prime with a self etching primer and use a regular spray paint. the former will be better for resisting heat from the lamp and ballast.

[XmasLightGuy]

I've never re-painted a vintage fixture, and in general would tend not to unless it was really bad & worth putting the effort into.

I've painted modern fixtures a few times, but done it to change the color.
Did one a few weeks ago infact...I bought an 8-footer on clearance. After testing the fixture got an upgrade added to it, (then got installed in place of an existing fixture.) The channel covers even though brand-new went right out to the patio for painting - I wanted something nicer than white, so I used some Rust-olium Hammered silver (my current paint/color of choice for metal things that need painting, because I really like the look it gives)

[lasagafield]

For fluorescents sand them down the best you can and slap on some hammerite or other radiator paint.
Did that with my rusty netaline and now it looks great.

[fluorescent]

After experimenting with a few different brands and types of paint over the last few months, I can confirm all aerosols are shite, some are just a little less shite. I suspect the only way to get a decent OEM type 'hard' finish would be too use a proper air gun and probably solvented paint, if Joe Public (or anyone) can even buy solvent based paint anymore?

Anywho, the least shite aersol 'rattle can' I've found is probably Action Can ZG-90 (can be boght off Ebay): https://www.actioncan.com/product/zg-90/

The most shite has to be Plastikote. It takes forever to go off and even then isn't a very tough finish. It's also overpriced (I guess you're just paying for their advertising).

I've yet to use any type of radiator enamel, I'll probably try that next time I paint a fitting. Can anyone reccomend a decent brand/type of radiator enamel?

[BC5-80]

Does radiator enamel rely on heat from the radiator to make it set hard?

[lasagafield]

I've done things with it and left them to dry outdoors and they have been fine.
It would be good to give it a long run shortly after painting though.