Can you really change the color of your washer or dryer? Do you have a chip in the finish that you want to touch up? A simple solution is to use appliance epoxy paint. You can get the paint in quart cans for HVLP spray application, or in convenient aerosol spray cans. You can buy touch up paint in little jars that can be brushed (or dabbed) onto a chipped corner of a dishwasher etc…
Epoxy appliance paint is a one part epoxy, with better than average hardness and adhesion. The paints come in common appliance colors for matching to other appliances.
Touch ups
Touching up an appliance finish can be as little as a scratch or can involve repainting a whole panel.
Touch up paint comes in little jars for brush application.
Finishing a panel (or two)
Appliances are made up of “panels”. The top is a panel, the front is a panel, each side is a panel.
Painting one panel is very easy, and you don’t have the problems associated with dry spray that you will need to address when painting multiple panels. If you are finishing a full panel you will need to use the aerosol spray or an Hvlp sprayer. The exact color match is not absolutely critical (it must be close) with one panel touch up, as you will not be able to detect minor color differences from one panel to another panel (facing another direction). One panel touch up is ideal for white appliances.
You will prepare the appliance for panel painting in the usual way (see below), but when masking you will mask off the adjacent panels so that they will not receive any over-spray. The exposed panel is the only surface that gets cleaned, sanded and painted.
Re-coloring
Repainting the entire appliance is the most difficult of the painting options. There is obviously more work involved with painting the appliance in it’s entirety, and there is the issue of dry spray or over spray.
Surface Preparation
Cleaning
Cleaning is very critical. You cannot skip this step or the paint will not adhere. Use a water based cleaner like Krud Kutter for your first cleaning. Spray it on and scour it with a scouring pad, then wipe off. Clean every little cranny and crevasse. Use a tooth brush to get into tight crevasses. Do a thorough job, don’t miss any areas.
Sanding
Sand the entire area to be painted with 400 grit sandpaper. Follow that up with 600 grit paper. Sanding will degloss the old enamel allowing the new paint to grip to the old. You can sand in a circular pattern. You may use a random orbit sander carefully. Do not sand through the paint exposing the bare metal. You are trying to degloss the paint, not remove it. Vacuum the sanding dust off the surface. Follow that up with a micro fiber tack rag. Do not use a conventional tack cloth (which contains oil), or you will contaminate the surface. After tack rag cleaning, you need to wipe down the whole surface with denatured alcohol. Do not use mineral spirits or any other oily solvents for the final wipe down - you will contaminate the surface with such.
Spraying
Spray in a well ventilated area on a day that is not windy. A back yard or garage will work well in most cases. You must be very alert to over spray **drift. You will need to extinguish any pilot lights or flames, and cover any heat and cold air returns - so that you don‘t circulate spray throughout the house via the air ducts. It is always best to set up a “paint booth” barrier to contain spray drift within a small area of the garage itself. See Zip Wall
Masking
Use masking paper and masking tape to cover anything that will not be painted. Cover the floor with a drop cloth.
Spray Respirator
Use a spray respirator with the proper chemical cartridges whenever you spray paint.
Self priming
Most epoxies are self priming and can be applied directly to the prepared surface.
Spraying
Spray on two or three full wet coats, overlapping each pass about 33%. Keep the can equal distant at all times to the surface. Allow the prescribed dry time between coats and recoat within the recoat “time window”.
Areosol Spray
You can do a good job in most cases with areosol spray cans. They are a little slower in application than a HVLP, but there is no gun clean up at the end of the day, which is nice.
Most spray problems come from dry spray and too wet an application (causing "sags" in the paint). It is helpful to practice on a scrap piece of cardboard to get the rate of application down before attempting to paint the real thing.
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Please read lead paint warning if your house / appliance was built before 1978
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