Painting a WSM 18.5?


 

Ryan Daggett

New member
Hey everyone, hopefully I'm posting in the right place, I'm new here and just purchased a WSM 18.5 about a month ago. So far everything has turned out excellent!

I'm curious about painting the WSM. I'm thinking about having a custom paint job done on my WSM and am wondering what type of paint (enamel, porcelain, etc) would be necessary to do this?

Reason is, I'm an android developer and have thought since unboxing my WSM that it looks just like the android guy, I'm going to be doing a custom arduino board for automatic temperature regulation so I was thinking painting a green android logo on it would take this to the next level.

Any ideas?
 
Just for inspiration:

http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/showthread.php?t=127852

I've done a couple, and both had challenges:

Little Red Bullet
Two-Tone Blue Bullet

In the first, I did a powder coat. Looked beautiful, but I auctioned it and have no idea how that finish held up. It starts to blister and come off around 600*F, and a hot coal directly on the inside of the charcoal bowl could cause that to happen. Maybe if you left the bowl standard and did only the top and middle section, you'd be pretty much assured the finish would be OK. And powder coating is quick, easy, can be done by lots of guys all over the country, and isn't that expensive.

In the second, I did an actual porcelain coating over the original finish. This is harder to find, costs more, and is prone to more problems in the process. In fact, I believe I had a perfectly round bottom section that warped and went out of round because of the 1200*F firing process.

Some guys have tried high-temp engine paints. I have no experience with that. Colors are more limited than with powder coating.

I would love to see a Star Wars fan try an R2D2 sometime. :)

Good luck, and post some picks if you give it a try.

Regards,
Chris
 
D'oh!
Actually, I don't think any paint is gonna stick to the weber factory finish very well. You'd have to rough it up pretty good first. That's why I have not tried it on one of mine. Why mess it up when it's still shiny? Maybe some day if one gets too beat up.
 
We have a company here in San Diego that does the header coating, I am very tempted to try this out. I have not looked into what they are going to charge for it though. I want to start with a smokey joe, try it then move to the 18 OTS and hopefully to my 18 WSM. Again no idea on cost so that may be very prohibitive. But tell me that a polished up WSM would not look absolutely Beach in! I am going to have to head up there during my lunch hour next week and talk to them.
http://www.electrotechcoatings.com/ceramicexhaustcoating/aluminizedceramiccoat.html
 
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I built a mini-wsm from the usual IMUSA pot and a black SJG. Then I grabbed the red caliper paint. It isn't doing well on the bottom but lil red still looks good
LilRed-2.jpg
 

 

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