refresh an old galvanised slippery slide

[paceman]

hi all,

i'm helping out our local church group and they have a 30 year old, galvanised slippery slide for the kids play area...

after thousands of kids going down the slide, the galvanising has worn through on the slide and is starting to get surface rust on it...

a replacement, commercial-grade plastic slide is around the $1500 mark, and i was wondering if anyone had any ideas on whether the existing slide could be refreshed?

any ideas on treatment, paint types, etc, would be appreciated...

[Bird]

sand blast it and get it re-galvanized ??

[paceman]

sand blast it and get it re-galvanized ??

it's concreted into the ground, so not real keen to pull it out, if we can get away with it...

but that may end up being an option...

[Pete79]

I would say the best thing for it is to be used...

All those pants sliding down will knock off the surface rust and all the greasy, grubby kid hands will put a nice protective coating on it.

Apart from that, perhaps a light sand and hit it with a heap of coats of clear to build up a decent layer of protection again.

[paceman]

I would say the best thing for it is to be used...

All those pants sliding down will knock off the surface rust and all the greasy, grubby kid hands will put a nice protective coating on it.

Apart from that, perhaps a light sand and hit it with a heap of coats of clear to build up a decent layer of protection again.

what sort of clear would be suitable?  would it be worthwhile to put down a coat of penetrol beforehand?

[Pete79]

I don’t know mate, I’m seriously the worlds worst painter.
Was just thinking clear coat would be designed to take the abrasion of getting scrubbed and washed and buffed constantly and thought it might be suitable for a slide.

However I do know those old galvanized slides and how great they feel on your ass in the middle of North Queensland summer.

I just remember they always had the galvanizing rubbed off along the sides were your hands go and in the middle down towards the bottom.
The well used ones never seam to get any worse then surface rust and I always figured it was from the constant natural oils off the kids bodies (and all of those little bits of melted skin being peeled off in summer) then always getting buffed by the clothes.

[Winchy]

I reckon buff it smooth with a wire buff and before use for a while spray it with spray starch and supply a few hessian sack bags for the kids to slide down on. It'll get the old natural slippery surface back in no time. Continual use is the only thing that'll keep it smooth.

[Hoyks]

Use it, all the bums polish the surface rust off.

Trying to clean it to get good paint adhesion will be challenging. So too trying to get an even coat and not end up with bugs and dust all through it.

For extra slip, baby powder of Mr Sheen will see them flying down the slide.

Is it the old slide made from pipe and with the slide bit welded onto the bottom edge? You might be able to get some .8mm gal sheet that will fit between the side rails and tuck in under them so there are no edges exposed. If you know someone that is competent with a guttering type soldering iron you could secure it with tin solder so there is no lead and no sharp edges.

[aussie9]

On our last farm, we had a gal slide for loading bags from the second floor of our shed onto trucks. We would polish it with floor polish. Gal was long worn off but it was slippery as all get out.
Peter

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[GBC]

As Hoyks said, it’ll be duragal sheet, easy enough for a tradesman to reslip depending on how it was originally built. I wouldn’t think paint is going to help too much for too long.

[kylarama]

what sort of clear would be suitable?  would it be worthwhile to put down a coat of penetrol beforehand?

I reckon this would be the quickest and easiest.  Give it a quick once over with a grinder fitted with a wire cup wheel.  Then buff on a 1 or 2 coats of Penetrol.

I don't know how slippery it would be with penetrol?

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[edz]

Wash it down and a light scrub with steel wool  and weak Citric powder  [ small tub of it at woolworths baking products section about $3 ] acid [ Coca Cola ] rinse and a good dry of then a liberal coat of Natural Lanotec  allow it to soak into the metal grain then wipe excess off .. Reapply Lanotec two or three times a year .

[loanrangie]

some type of marine polyurethane clear should do the trick.