painting metal exterior doors

I have volunteered to paint 4 exterior doors, from my brother's house. They are 15 years old and have not had any paint applied to them. I will clean them with wax and grease remover. Is an epoxy primer overkill? The original primer is still on the door, but it will most like be in poor condition. Then what type of paint to use. He is willing to allow me to use Automotive paint for a topcoat. If they wanted to repaint the doors years from now, will an oil based enamel or a latex paint be able to be applied over the automotive paint? Also he tried to paint one door with a rattle can. Will this cause a problem for me?
Thank you
Steve

I think an epoxy primer and automotive paint is overkill but if you want to use it there is no harm in it. Unless it gets banged up it should never need painting again. If it does there is no reason it couldn't be recoated with the same automotive paint or an oil based enamel. With latex you would need to prime over the automotive paint with a bonding primer first. If you choose to use an enamel now I would clean the old primer and use a fresh metal primer before topcoating. The enamel I would use is the industrial maintenance enamel Sherwin Williams sells.

The rattle can paint may be a problem depending on what paint you put over it. Sometimes the solvents in paint will lift rattle can paint. This would only be a problem with some automotive paints. An enamel wouldn't hurt it.

I have some oil enamel paint that I am going to put on an old engine stand. If I like how it sprays, I may buy more for the doors. My brother has given me a blank check type of approval for this project.
Thank you
Steve

(quoted from post at 04:14:56 07/10/15) I have volunteered to paint 4 exterior doors, from my brother's house. They are 15 years old and have not had any paint applied to them. I will clean them with wax and grease remover. Is an epoxy primer overkill? The original primer is still on the door, but it will most like be in poor condition. Then what type of paint to use. He is willing to allow me to use Automotive paint for a topcoat. If they wanted to repaint the doors years from now, will an oil based enamel or a latex paint be able to be applied over the automotive paint? Also he tried to paint one door with a rattle can. Will this cause a problem for me?
Thank you
Steve

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I installed a new, metal front door on this house approximately 16 years ago. I painted it with the IH cream from my Case-IH dealer. I used the rattle cans. The IH paint produced a nice gloss, and it looks just as good today as it did when first installed.

Do you mean rattle can paint? It can be done but rattle can paint is difficult to spray a large area like a door.

I like the automotive urethane paints.

You need to be prepared to practice your body work skills. A steel door that is 15 years old will have plenty of dings in it that will show up in the new paint. The automotive paints with the high gloss look great with the proper prep work done. Just be prepared to fix things you never knew existed.


Steven

(quoted from post at 06:45:49 07/10/15) Do you mean rattle can paint? It can be done but rattle can paint is difficult to spray a large area like a door.

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An exterior house door is not all that big. Easily done with aerosol rattle cans. Plus, those rattle cans from Case-IH have a different type of nozzle. It can be adjusted to allow for either horizontal or a vertical spray pattern. Much different from the typical farm store stuff.

Well what I meant is by the time a person makes a 3' long stroke with the paint the edge of the previous layer is often too dry for the next row to properly melt together. Then when you get done it covers well but you can see 50 horizontal lines where you made each stroke. They are getting better to put slow drying solvents in rattle can paint but it's still difficult to keep a wet edge.

Our exterior metal doors are about 30 years old and still look good. The wooden interior doors I take out around the garden and use my old spray gun to paint them. They have slats and using the spay gun covers them nice. Hal

(quoted from post at 07:00:38 07/13/15) Well what I meant is by the time a person makes a 3' long stroke with the paint the edge of the previous layer is often too dry for the next row to properly melt together. Then when you get done it covers well but you can see 50 horizontal lines where you made each stroke. They are getting better to put slow drying solvents in rattle can paint but it's still difficult to keep a wet edge.

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I have encountered that problem when using cheap, discount store aerosol paint, but I've never had that problem when using the GOOD, Case-IH paint. Just my opinion, and I'm not pointing fingers at anybody, but if you can't lay down a nice, even coat of paint using rattle cans, you probably won't have much better luck with a paint gun. You need to be OUT of the wind, and have very GOOD light. The same as if using a paint gun.