Ep. 13 - DIY Paint RV Stove

Of course the best way to paint a stove is to Powder Coat it. But, being that I bought this 3 burner stove for $25 and they wanted $100 to powder coat JUST the top, was out of the question.
So, I settled with High heat enamel paint. That you can buy basically any where. I am going with a Gloss black, and since I had some left over BBQ paint, I am using that on the grills. Those will be a flat finish, so it will give it some contrast.

This is what I used:

• High Heat Black gloss enamel on stove top
• Aluminum enamel paint on box
• Black gloss enamel paint everywhere else

First off was to figure out a way to clean up all the rust.
Lucky I have a power grinder. With a wire brush attachment, it took about 20 minutes to do the top.

Everything was then cleaned with denatured alcohol. Now, if I should have used something else, I dont know... But, this worked good, and the alcohol evaporated quickly.

The inside of the stove took abit as I had to take pictures to confirm how to put everything back together.

Plus, most of the screws were extremely rusted, so, it took some elbow grease.

I did do a dumb ass move... As I started to grind the box, I looked a way (did the squirrel thing) and the grinder took off the skinny pilot tubing. Broke it right off!

As you could see, I tried to work around the rusted screws, but that did not work.

Elbow grease and some screw release, and wala!

One last pesky burner with rusted screw

Not going to lie, the sanding of this, including the grills took about 1 1/2 - 2 hrs.

WEAR EYE PROTECTION!
The little wire bristles fly off. I was hit in the face. Not to mention, they get caught in your hair too!

I also took a little Dremel with a buffer attachment to the burners, that buffed them up nicely, since they are made out of soft metal.

Back to my bone head move. What am I going to do now? The stove is pretty old, so trying to find parts is difficult or non-existent. So, since this is for the pilot, I am just going to remove the pilot all together.

Went to a pipe fitting store, and found the right size cap for the pipe, and crisis averted.

Here is the box, sanded and painted. (Aluminum)

Here is the finished product!

So again, to highlight...

I am not overly crazy excited about this, as a powder coat would be way more durable.

I will update after our maiden voyage to see if the the paint held up.

The grills and stove top were painted with High heat paint. Everything else was regular enamel.

But, it did turn out nice.

Also, I am still trying to figure out what to put (cheap) behind the stove...