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How to Paint a Wood Stove?

Wood burning stoves are a great way to bring a nice dose of warmth and comfort to your home during a cold winter night – they are effective, economic, and even have a cozy and romantic feel to them. That last part can easily be diminished if the stove is not in a good condition, however, so it’s important to make sure that your stove isn’t just working properly but looks good as well. So, to that end, let’s take a look at how to paint a wood burning stove?

To some, this may sound like a simple task while others are probably wondering “Can you paint a wood stove at all?” The answer to that is that yes, you can definitely paint a wood burning stove but it’s also not as simple as spraying a bit of high temp-resistant paint on top of it. So, let’s go over the 3 main steps of refreshing the look of your wood burning stove.

Preparation

Before you start painting your stove you’ll need to do quite a bit of preparation. You should carefully inspect the entire stove and make sure there isn’t any rust blistering or peeling going on. If there is – gram some sandpaper or a wire brush and take care of it thoroughly.

Next, you should look for any oil, grease, or dirt that you wouldn’t want to paint over and clean it. There are various cleaning products that are specifically made for wood stoves and fireplaces if simple soapy water isn’t doing the trick.

Making sure that the entire surface of your stove is in an excellent condition is the most important part of the process since every bit of dirt or rust will prevent the paint from taking hold well enough.

Next, make sure you choose the right paint. There are many different times of heat-resistant paints but each has its own properties and characteristics. Take a look at the stove’s manual as well and look for its max heat and other characteristics that might affect your choice of paint.

Application

Before you start spraying the paint, it’s important to shake it continuously for at least 2 minutes. This will make sure that the pigment and solvents are properly mixed together. Next, make sure that both the paint and the stove are at a temperature somewhere between 65 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit as that’s when you’ll get the best results. If you need to warm up your paint a bit, just put the still-closed can under a running warm water for a bit.

After that, make sure that the area where you’re about to paint your stove is properly ventilated as you don’t want to inhale too much of the paint fumes. Then, test a bit of the paint on a piece of cardboard or something similar to make sure that it’s properly diluted. Also, don’t forget to place some newspapers or a piece of cloth under and around the stove.

And then, simply start spraying. It’s better to spray at a distance between 12 and 18 inches. Also, it’s much better to apply two thin layers of paint rather than one thick layer. After you’ve applied the paint, give the stove about 48 hours to dry up and “air cure” properly.

Curing the paint

Last but not least, it’s time to cure the high-temp paint. Once the 48-hours period has passed, start a small kindling inside the stove. Then you should add a bit of fuel and build a medium-sized fire to bring the surface temperature of the stove to about 450 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep that fire going steadily for about an hour.

Next, add more fuel and raise the temperature to about 600 degrees. Keep that fire burning for about 45 minutes. There will be quite a bit of smoke during this phase so make sure you allow for proper ventilation.

After the 45 minutes have passed, put out the fire – you should have successfully cured the high-temp paint and your stove will be safe to use.

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