Paint for worn dish rack?

[jeromedawg]

Hey guys,

So we have these white rubber/plastic coated wire dish rack sink protectors for our white cast-iron sink. These are useful to prevent bad scratches and rust from leaving pots/pans in at times. Problem is, the coating on the racks started wearing off, revealing the metal, which in turn resulted in rust spots on the sink. These are apparently custom-fit racks or they came with the sink that the original homeowner had installed. So you can't just go out and buy a rack that will fit perfectly in place. I'd like to keep them and see about repainting them. In fact, I had a spray can of Krylon glossy paint/coating around so I sprayed a few coats on - it looked way better but it's not quite holding up, which I figured might happen.

That said, is there a product that would be good for this? And do I need to go through the process of stripping all existing coating off before reapplying? I see there's a product called ReRack by Plastidip but it's not available at Home Depot it seems. Are there comparable products that do as good a job? Apparently, regular Plastidip isn't as good (per reviews on Amazon) for this purpose as any heat will generally contribute towards loosening the coating and washing it away.

[jeromedawg]

So far all I've seen are "Uber Goop" and "ReRack" - there's also this stuff called "Appliance Touchup" by Rustoleum but that's not truly rated for high heat or presumably for use on dishwasher racks or wherever there would be contact with heat/hot water. I'd be hesitant to try it for this purpose. Guess I'll have to hunt around for ReRack. I think Ace sells it but I'd much prefer to get it at HomeDepot since I have a gift card.

[Beardog]

Take a look at this: http://www.stovepaint.com/

It's paint for wood stoves. 

[sisto]

I would use this:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/45925369?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227033818333&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=70648635272&wl4=pla-138616738352&wl5=9032905&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=45925369&wl13=&veh=sem

[Fishindude]

I'd try something like that rubber "tool dip" you coat pliers handles in.
Can get it in several colors at many hardware stores.

[Miss Piggy]

We used Re-rack on a couple of places on our dishwasher racks. It's not pretty...more like a "glob" of dried silicone. If you want something smooth and pretty to match what you already have, Re-rack is probably not what you want. If you don't care about looks and just need something effective, Re-rack could be perfect. (I should also mention that I made zero effort to make the Re-rack globs look better...I just wanted to cover the metal, and it did that well.)

[robartsd]

That said, is there a product that would be good for this? And do I need to go through the process of stripping all existing coating off before reapplying? I see there's a product called ReRack by Plastidip but it's not available at Home Depot it seems. Are there comparable products that do as good a job? Apparently, regular Plastidip isn't as good (per reviews on Amazon) for this purpose as any heat will generally contribute towards loosening the coating and washing it away.

Are you talking about a rack for draining hand washed dishes or a dishwasher rack? For hand washed dish rack, I don't see a large exposure to heat - you might re-read those reviews to be sure they apply to your situation.

[jeromedawg]

That said, is there a product that would be good for this? And do I need to go through the process of stripping all existing coating off before reapplying? I see there's a product called ReRack by Plastidip but it's not available at Home Depot it seems. Are there comparable products that do as good a job? Apparently, regular Plastidip isn't as good (per reviews on Amazon) for this purpose as any heat will generally contribute towards loosening the coating and washing it away.

Are you talking about a rack for draining hand washed dishes or a dishwasher rack? For hand washed dish rack, I don't see a large exposure to heat - you might re-read those reviews to be sure they apply to your situation.

It's not a drying rack, though it can be used as one probably. It's more a "sink protector" than it is a rack - it basically just keeps dishes off the sink itself to prevent the sink from being scratched. That said, it technically is a rack - the problem is that over the past however many years, pots/pans/etc have scraped off the coating resulting it the exposed metal and rust - the bottom corners of the rack especially are rusting which transfers to the sink corners. I'll try to get a picture up soon. We will often run hot water to clean pots/pans in the sink (while they are sitting on the rack) and will also scrub the sink down with bleach and hot water every couple weeks. So there is a pretty 'regular' exposure to hot water.

[robartsd]

It's not a drying rack, though it can be used as one probably. It's more a "sink protector" than it is a rack - it basically just keeps dishes off the sink itself to prevent the sink from being scratched. That said, it technically is a rack - the problem is that over the past however many years, pots/pans/etc have scraped off the coating resulting it the exposed metal and rust - the bottom corners of the rack especially are rusting which transfers to the sink corners. I'll try to get a picture up soon. We will often run hot water to clean pots/pans in the sink (while they are sitting on the rack) and will also scrub the sink down with bleach and hot water every couple weeks. So there is a pretty 'regular' exposure to hot water.

Thanks for the clarification. It sits in hot tap water (100-120F) regularly and may sometimes be exposed to even higher temperature water briefly when water used in cooking is drained.

[Miss Piggy]

I commented above about Re-rack...but thinking about it and reading more details from you, I have to wonder if maybe this thing has outlived its useful life. Perhaps it wouldn't be a mortal sin to toss it in the trash and buy a new one that has no metal parts. We have a collapsible one like this (purchased at Marshall's for much less than this Amazon version), and I've been happy with it.
https://smile.amazon.com/Prepworks-Progressive-Collapsible-Over--Drainer/dp/B002R5A178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474396415&sr=8-1&keywords=collapsible+dish+rack

[jeromedawg]

I commented above about Re-rack...but thinking about it and reading more details from you, I have to wonder if maybe this thing has outlived its useful life. Perhaps it wouldn't be a mortal sin to toss it in the trash and buy a new one that has no metal parts. We have a collapsible one like this (purchased at Marshall's for much less than this Amazon version), and I've been happy with it.
https://smile.amazon.com/Prepworks-Progressive-Collapsible-Over--Drainer/dp/B002R5A178/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474396415&sr=8-1&keywords=collapsible+dish+rack

Yea, we were going to toss it at first, but it's actually a very nice rack. It's just the coating that has gotten a run for its money. I really think it can be revived with the correct coating application. ReRack sounds like it could do the job just fine. Heck, even the paint we sprayed on has done a fairly decent job despite already rubbing off in the corners (which I anticipated). I knew about ReRack before your post and the difficult thing with that is figuring out where to buy it - I think Ace sells it and there's an Ace not too far, otherwise Amazon 3rd party sellers seem to carry it. I just wish it were available at Lowes and HomeDepot... EDIT: looks like Amazon has it available now - I just ordered one. Yesterday it was only available through 3rd party sellers. Hope this works out! I pretty much just need to cover the bottom corners and the top parts where the coating has really rubbed off and exposed the metal.

Speaking of plastic dish racks, we got a Joseph Joseph square-shaped plastic sink basin from Bed Bath & Beyond that has worked well - we primarily use it to throw in the baby feeding stuff. It's a bit bulky in there but its another layer of protection. Still, it would be good keeping those original racks in there as long as possible. Depending on how long we plan to stay in this condo, I may just opt to have a new [stainless steel] sink installed at some point.

[Miss Piggy]

We ordered the Re-rack from Amazon. I would guess we applied it to our problem spots on our dishwasher racks at least 3 years ago, and it's held up very well.