Surface preparation for painting over rust: St2/St3 cleaning, rust layer assessment and conversion pre-treatment process

2026-07-31 · Category: Technical Knowledge

🌐 This article was automatically translated from Chinese. Please refer to the original Chinese version if needed. · اصل (چینی) دیکھیں
Use hammer chiseling to listen for sound (hollow sound indicates voids under rust), compare original plate thickness with a thickness gauge, and locally grind to probe. If significant plate thickness reduction or dense pitting (severe Grade D) is found, stop the rust-inhibitive scheme and switch to sandblasting or plate patching.

Q: Compared with sandblasting, how much less durable is rust-inhibitive treatment?

A: Rust-inhibitive treatment (St2/St3) is maintenance-grade; its long-term durability is usually lower than that of a sandblasting (Sa2.5) + zinc-rich heavy anti-corrosion system. The specific gap depends on the environmental grade and design service life, and cannot be generalized, but it is an industry consensus that rust-inhibitive treatment should not replace sandblasting in main heavy anti-corrosion specifications.

Q: What are the consequences of incomplete degreasing?

A: Oil stains form an isolation layer between the metal and the coating, causing severely reduced adhesion and localized large-area peeling, and the subsequent conversion liquid cannot contact the rust layer either. Degreasing must be the first step and cannot be omitted.

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