This is especially important to do if the railing was painted before 1978. If your iron railing tests positive for lead, contact a professional painting company to remove the paint for you.
If you don’t have drop cloths or old sheets, spread newspaper underneath the railing.
If you’re working on an indoor railing, open windows to ventilate the space.
You can try to scrape paint off of curved portions of the railing, but this might be difficult unless you have a very narrow blade.
Choose a firm wire brush that won’t snap as you apply pressure to the brush head.
If the scraper and wire brush removed all of the paint, you can skip this step.
Remove oil-based paint with paint thinner and water-based paint with a latex removal agent. You can dip the brush directly into the stripper or pour the liquid stripper into a paint tray.
Spread a thick layer of the chemical stripper so it works quickly.
This gives the chemicals time to break down the old paint that’s on the railing.
You can buy tack cloths from hardware stores or online. Or, use a clean, damp microfiber cloth. Mineral spirits air dry quickly so there’s no need to dry the railing with a cloth.
If you prefer, use a small foam roller to apply the primer.
Although you may want to apply more than 1 coat of paint, you only need 1 coat of primer. The primer may take longer to dry if the weather is cooler than 70 °F (21 °C) or it’s very humid.
Use a paintbrush to paint any areas that you can’t cover with the roller. If you want to apply another coat, wait 4 hours before spreading another coat of paint.
