POR-15 Safety Blue is Harold Clay’s preferred color for painting his shop equipment, including steel cabinets, benches, rotisseries, and frame tables. He utilizes a durable industrial coating that provides a custom painted look.
Rust never sleeps, that is, until rusted iron or steel is painted with POR-15 rust-preventive coating. I recently traveled on behalf of Modern Rodding to Enid, Oklahoma, to visit Harold’s Hot Rod Shop’s new digs on 2 acres adjacent to the 5-acre site where Clay has operated Clay’s Collision Center since 1979.
There are options: brush it on straight from the can or, to ensure you achieve Concours d’Elegance results, POR-15 offers accessories. There is a mid-temp, low-VOC reducer to reduce viscosity or to clean up spray guns when finished. Self-etching, high-build primers help smooth rough surfaces.
Clay opened the collision center as a one-man operation and grew it into a 10-person business spanning 20,000 square feet, featuring two heated spray booths equipped with the latest technology to handle even the most severe collision repairs. In 2015, Clay expanded by adding an additional 5,000 square feet at the rear of the collision center to open Harold’s Hot Rod Shop, a space where he could indulge his hobby at night. Clay crafted a Concours d’Elegance quality 1932 Ford highboy roadster from the ground up, and before he knew it, the hot rod shop was filled with customers’ rare classic cars and high-end hot rods.
Harold advises that POR-15 non-flammable, waterbased Cleaner Degreaser is the best industrial-strength cleaner available on the market. It doesn’t leave a residue, but it is an extremely aggressive cleaner, so do a test area first before using it at full strength.
In 2023, Harold addressed a problem that had long needed correction. Clay’s Collision Center was overflowing with collision repairs, so to relieve the situation, Clay began construction on a 10,000-square-foot building on a 2-acre property he purchased adjacent to Clay’s Collision Center. By early 2024, the hot rod shop’s new location was ready for occupancy and the collision center quickly absorbed the additional 5,000 square feet.
After using POR-15 Cleaner Degreaser, POR-15 Metal Prep is the next step to enhance the adhesion of any opaque paint or coating. This means Metal Prep can be used anywhere, even in high-end automotive restorations where a gentle etch is desired to create an ideal anchor pattern.
No expense was spared in setting up Clay’s new place. Three massive HVAC units and a brand-new heated Ameri-Cure paint booth, complete with an attached mixing room were installed to withstand Oklahoma’s hot and cold seasons. Outdoors, surrounding the 2-acre property, a custom-built fence was painted off-white with black accents. Inside the shop, color-keyed to match the outdoors, Clay followed the designer’s “rule of three” using off-white, black, and shades of blue. Clay brought over an assortment of custom-made frame tables, rotisseries, and stands built to suspend parts from the old shop. The new digs raised the bar quite high; the heavily rusted bare metal fixtures stored outdoors for years looked out of place in their new surroundings.
Not all metal fixtures were sandblasted before painting with POR-15 Safety Blue. A quick buzz with a DA or body grinder using 80-grit to knock off loose rust and scale, leaving a moderately rusted surface, is sufficient. Then, use Cleaner Degreaser and optionally apply Metal Prep to ensure the best bond.
Just like at the old hot rod shop, the fixtures will spend some time stored outdoors and exposed to corrosive weather conditions. The glossy look of powdercoating is hard to beat but these factors can deteriorate powdercoating when subjected to harsh environments like rain, snow, or sun. With this in mind, Clay chose POR-15 because of its ability to stop rust on metal surfaces.
Sandblasting off perfectly good-appearing ordinary paint sounds counterintuitive, but coating POR-15 over ordinary paint is bad. Ordinary paint weakens with exposure to moisture, and POR-15 can’t stop rust if it isn’t in direct contact with a base metal.
The tagline for POR-15 is its “3-Step Stop Rust System.” For the DIY guy at home, painting rusted metal items with POR-15 is a simple three-step process where a paintbrush can be used instead of spray painting while still achieving professional results. When brushed on, as POR-15 cures, visible dust particles settle to the bottom, out of sight, and brush strokes disappear. Step 1 is to clean the rusted metal. Step 2 is to prepare the rusted metal, and Step 3 is to “stir never shake” the can and coat. Extra steps can be added for the professional builder who has committed to his clients to produce the highest quality results possible, and it doesn’t hurt to have a state-of-the-art facility. “From Rust to Finish,” POR-15 carries a full line of permanent restoration products. MR
After sandblasting or media blasting, any type of abrasive compressed air should be used rigorously to blow out sand or media from hidden areas that can contaminate POR-15’s final finish with unwanted “dirt in the paint.”Either choice works fine: a disposable paint brush or a squirt bottle filled with Metal Prep. Metal Prep has a metal etching formula that leaves a zinc phosphate coating on bare metal.Metal Prep can be rinsed off with a garden hose or wiped off with a water-soaked rag or towel and then left to dry completely. Notice that Metal Prep has left a white, phosphate-like coating.POR-15 can be applied outdoors with a brush, or to ensure a Concours d’Elegance finish, it should be painted free of imperfections, blown and tacked with a tack rag, and sprayed inside a paint booth.Stir, do not shake, POR-15 to mix! Stirring, not shaking, a can of POR-15 ensures the heavy pigments and rust-preventative goodness that settle to the bottom will rejoin the mix and provide excellent results.POR-15 Dry Time Accelerator is an additive designed to speed up the cure time of POR-15 by 30 to 50 percent without altering the physical properties. Although it is formulated exclusively for POR-15, other brand urethane paints may also benefit from it.Two coats of single-stage POR-15 Safety Blue on this panel beater’s sandbag pedestal achieved a high-gloss appearance similar to a basecoat/clearcoat finish and provided a non-porous barrier impervious to water, chemicals, salt, and other corrosives.Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil works great for wrapping objects, providing a flexible mask that prevents damaging the finish with overspray. POR-15 overspray is a bear to remove.This adjustable-length rotisserie, coated with POR-15 Safety Blue one year ago, spends most of its time outdoors exposed to the harsh elements of four seasons.A 1965 Chevelle Malibu SS from California is in for fit and finish. It started 18 months ago as a bare Art Morrison Enterprises chassis perched on this rolling fixture, painted with POR-15 Safety Blue.A 1937 Dodge project; one year ago, Harold’s Hot Rod Shop coated with POR-15 Safety Blue a rolling fixture to match over a dozen cars and pickups, all based on an AME chassis.A topcoat is required for POR-15 if it is exposed to continuous UV light. For a topcoat, POR-15 2K urethane industrial is a heavy-duty, two-component coating that resists chemicals and fuels, providing a tough, durable finish that will withstand direct sunlight.
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