The Lamp Room

Has anyone considered or done a spray paint job on those 500W halogen security floodlights when the paintwork gets masked by the aluminium oxide?

Obviously I'd get a weatherproof and metallic use black spray paint

FF96

You'd be better off with high temperature engine paint or similar...

You'd also need to use an etch primer first for spraying to aluminium or the top coat won't stick to it
Also best to get every last trace of corrosion off the metal or it will likely come back though the paint after some time (as I have had happen in the past!).

A good wire wheeling.

I'd have to question if it's worth doing?

Unless it's something rare / special, it's probably not worth the effort or cost - you can still freely buy these on eBay and similar for around a fiver. A can of paint is more than that, etch primer even more. Then there's the effort involved to actually do it.

Sadly, my experience of fittings like this is they're made of utter crap and once it starts to corrode and flake, you're unlikely to actually solve it in a way that will last any time.

I get it for old / rare lanterns and the like, but for an everty day floodlight, personally I wouldn't bother. As I said tho, if it's something rare or unusual, then maybe, but if it's some no-name fitting, just get another one.

I guess not everyone might agree there, but sometimes you have to be realistic about how worthwhile something actually is to try and do...

I agree with the above, sadly a lot of these sort of fittings like that are made of what might as well be pot metal so it really would be cheaper to just get another one (and maybe a second one as a spare for that if you really want) or find an older decent vintage fitting and restore and use that.

I've scrapped several fittings like that in the past (just stripped them for parts etc) as they wouldn't be worth the time or effort to restore, instead just searching for something that's overall better to begin with to replace them with.

For these I'd just keep looking on ebay and the boot sales and get a few spare fittings in stock so you can continue to use them and just replace when they get too tatty

Could go on eBay and get a real halogen flood, like a Thorn or Thorlu.

Wouldn’t waste your time. Yeet it

Thanks everyone

Like if I am serious about preserving the halogen floodlights that involves daily/outdoor service I am prepared to stock up on multiple copies - of course the super special will be for collection only

The same goes for stocking up on the linear halogen lamps cos those LED retrofit ones are not fantastic and won't have the brightness and warmth of the halogen

That's what I tend to do with fittings I use permanently and intend to keep using I've got a couple of PL floodlights installed outside, and I have a couple of the same ones still new and boxed as future spares as sadly none of them will last forever and they'll only get harder to find.

Having recently installed a linear halogen flood in the garden again I'd forgotten how brilliant the light is from them, nice and bright with the perfect incandescent colour which puts most of the LED ones we see now to shame, it's just the energy usage that is a problem if used for long hours!