Rust removal on railings, stairways and gates in Medicine Hat

Steel railings, exterior stairways, gates and grating are some of the hardest things to repaint well. They are all edges, joints and corners, and a wire brush or a grinder only ever gets the flat parts.

Why railings rust from the joints

Paint is thinnest on edges and corners, and water collects where pickets meet rails and where posts meet the ground. That is where rust starts, and it creeps under the surrounding paint from there. Scraping and repainting the flat sections leaves the source of the problem in place.

What blasting does differently

Media reaches every face of every picket, the inside of every joint and the underside of every rail at the same rate. The steel comes back clean with a surface profile the primer can grip. For the reasoning, see surface profile, explained.

A railing repaint fails at the joints first. That is the part that needs the most attention, and the part hand tools reach least.

What we take on

• Structural steel — railings, stairways, grating and walkways on commercial and industrial sites.
• Handrails, bollards and stair nosings on public and commercial property.
• Steel gates and fencing on yards and acreages.

Working next to buildings and people

A lot of this steel is attached to something — a building entrance, a loading dock, a walkway that stays open. Wet blasting keeps dust down, silica-free media keeps the air safe, and spent media is collected and removed.

Older commercial buildings downtown and in the Medicine Hat industrial parks often have exterior stairs and railings with years of paint layers. Taking them back to bare steel once is usually better than another coat over the top.