The New Hotness

The 4 inch column on the rear patio holds a bracket, probably intended for a welcoming sign or some such, which keeps the suet feeder mostly out of reach. It desperately wanted a coat of black paint to match the railing, so I stripped the old paint and applied Evapo-Rust:

The dark areas are iron oxide being converted to loose iron sulfide, which is what Evapo-Rust does for a living.

One could, of course, simply buy new eye screws & nuts, but we’re deep into historical preservation around here.

An hour of soaking and a few minutes of wire-wheeling got everything down to bare metal, ready for some rattle-can primer and black paint action:

It’s a version of what Eks calls a “used car finish”: high shine over deep pits.

Discussion of why one should not paint threaded parts will be unavailing; in this case, paint serves as permanent threadlock. I re-spritzed the eyescrews & nuts after getting everything aligned, so as to produce a lovely two-coat over-all finish.

The birds won’t care one way or the other and, as long as the paint lasts, neither will we.