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I need to spray paint the parts of a large and heavy bed and I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this. I'd like to paint the headboard by standing it up and then just painting the whole thing, but it would be too unstable for that. So I think it needs some kind of support to keep it upright while painting and drying.

But then if I paint it with a support, the part covered by the support won't get painted, and I'd have to do another coat later, which is at best annoying, and the paint might not match perfectly.

What's the best way to paint something like this?

Joshua Frank
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    You said, "it would be too unstable for that". Well, only if you do it in an unstable manner. Please revise to tell us more about the bed. We don't have much to go on here. – isherwood May 10 '23 at 18:17
  • I mean that the headboard is tall enough relative to its legs that if I try to stand it on its feet, it falls over. So I would need to support it in some way. – Joshua Frank May 10 '23 at 19:31
  • Well, "standing it on some base" implies a connection between the two. Maybe revise to clarify. – isherwood May 10 '23 at 19:33
  • Assemble the whole frame with rails and head and foot boards. Paint. The only places that won't get painted are...already hidden when the bed is assembled. – Ecnerwal May 10 '23 at 22:11
  • @Ecnerwal That's a good idea, except that assembly is difficult, and then I'd have to do it twice, because I can't paint it in place indoors. – Joshua Frank May 11 '23 at 13:11
  • Really, the easy button is to simply support it in a location where the unpainted part won't be visible, or is easy to touch up when the other 99% is dry. Unless you have some kind of OCD that precludes this. – Huesmann May 11 '23 at 13:19
  • @Huesmann It's not exactly OCD, more like the desire to get this done in one go and not have to remember to circle back and touch up. Maybe I can make the support points so small that this won't be necessary. – Joshua Frank May 11 '23 at 17:36
  • @JoshuaFrank If you support your frame with nails, point up, that would be about as small as the unpainted spots would need to be. Get some long nails and poke them through a couple boards that you could place on a couple supports. – Huesmann May 12 '23 at 16:03
  • 3 points of contact. Standing up, one side slightly pulled away, with only the one corner actually leaning against the wall. Or one or two boards leaning against the wall, but pulled to a diamond shape to reduce contact. 'The only places that won't get painted are...already [not] hidden when the bed is assembled [and then bounced on a bit].' - This isn't block filler... you gonna spray paint; you take it apart. - Do a BS coat on the back and then flip it around in a half an hour. Then you do a heavy coat on the front and not touch it for 24h. To do both sides well, then you have to hang it. – Mazura May 12 '23 at 19:45

7 Answers7

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I've used several strategies for things like this.

  • Lay the headboard on saw horses or other stands. Use blocks or spacers (such as plastic bottle caps) so that the only points of contact are inside the bottom face. Spray the top and side surfaces, let dry, and flip to finish.

    Use something smooth and soft to protect the paint when you do the second side.

  • Install eye bolts in the bottoms of the legs and suspend the headboard from garage rafters, etc. You could use a rope to make its height adjustable for easier access.

  • Bolt the headboard to support boards with lag screws run into the bottom of the legs. Use washers or other spacer to minimize contact with the support board. Spray away.

    If your headboard truly is too large or heavy for this, put a small screw in the bottom of the lower rail and run twine down to the ends of the support board to act as diagonal braces. The screw hole will probably be hidden, but you could fill it and touch up if you like.

manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact
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isherwood
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    *touch up if you like* That's really the key. There will almost always be some small spots somewhere that just don't come out right. Though if those are the bottom (floor) end of the legs (the eye bolt method) then even those don't need to be touched up. – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact May 10 '23 at 19:02
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    The hanging method - so common, so easy - even used in paint shops for doors wings etc – Solar Mike May 11 '23 at 08:45
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I either paint one side at a time, or if I can find some spots where the dimples won't show, I use Painter's Pyramids. They're like jackstands for paint projects :) but they're going to leave a dimple where the tip touches.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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My father-in-law has long used a solution similar to what Opifex suggested, but a bit easier to come by: a bed of nails

He takes some 2x4s and drives 3" nails into them. This pokes out quite a ways in the other side. He then lays the 2x4s across sawhorses with the nail side up. You can then lay whatever you want to paint onto this bed of nails and paint away. The tips of where the nails were will be hard to notice and easily painted if they are still visible

Machavity
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  • Ooh, I like this. Now I'm thinking to hammer some nails into the *ends* of some 2x4s and stand the parts up and lean them on the nails, in an A frame. Then I can access front and back with only that small area under the nail heads blocked from the paint. – Joshua Frank May 11 '23 at 17:41
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and I'd have to do another coat later

If you're looking to do a good job of this, you need at least two coats anyway. If you lay the paint on thickly enough to not need a second coat, you're going to get runs/drips and the whole thing is going to look a bit rubbish. Alternate spraying front then back then front then back, and it'll all just come together.

The sides of the headboard are going to get extra paint compared to the front and back, of course, but if you're alternating front and back then it'll look fine.

Graham
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  • Could you elaborate a bit on this? Does it change if the paint is actually a whitewash (which is basically thinned paint)? Since the goal with whitewashing is to let the underlying surface show through, I was hoping to get away with one coat. Either way, why would the sides get more paint? – Joshua Frank May 11 '23 at 17:38
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    @JoshuaFrank This is a vital missing piece of information for your question. The aim of paint is to cover the surface *without* the underlying surface showing through. If you need to manage opacity as well, that's a very different situation - and of course it completely explains why you don't want the support there. Re the sides, if you just sprayed front and back then you'd get significant overspray on the sides each time, but the fact you're covering the headboard from both sides would give an edge-free result. But of course that won't quite work for opaque paint. – Graham May 11 '23 at 18:57
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This might not work for everyone, but I have quite a big stock of old ICs laying around that are of no use to anyone anymore.

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I lay them down on their back (with the leads upwards), paint one side of the object and lay it down on that side so that I can paint the other sides.

Because the leads are so small, the marks they leave behind are minimal. For most purposes this is okay. In your example: you could place the side with the tiny marks towards the wall.

Note that the bigger (and heavier) the object, the more of these ICs you will need.

Opifex
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    "of no use to anyone anymore" - Have you tried selling them? There might be hundreds of dollars' worth to the right person, and it would be a shame for almost-unobtainable ICs to go to landfill instead of repairs. – Andrew Morton May 11 '23 at 11:22
  • @AndrewMorton I have considered it, yes. But these are definitely not rare ones. Unless there's one or two rare ones at the bottom of the mountain of thousands common ones. They're 70's and 80's tech. IC's of which trillions have been produced (oldskool TTL chips and oldskool analog Audio). – Opifex May 11 '23 at 12:42
  • Heh. The chips in short supply look nothing like that. These are almost vacuum tubes by comparison. :) – isherwood May 11 '23 at 12:44
  • They're kind of small for a headboard, aren't they? – Dennis Williamson May 11 '23 at 14:36
  • @DennisWilliamson If they're too small, just use more? I have used them for fairly large objects. As long as you use enough and spread them out far enough it will be pretty stable. – Opifex May 11 '23 at 15:13
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    @isherwood Some, like the 7482 (2-bit adder), are no longer manufactured, so bodges would be needed for repairs. Oh well, it was just a suggestion. – Andrew Morton May 12 '23 at 14:17
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I'd normally paint front and back separately, but you have another option. In your comments you mention the headboard's legs. So quickly make a jig (frame) to support the legs. A pair of triangular legs should be enough, but you could link them.

I'd use rough sawn 2x2 because it's cheap, sturdy, and easy to work. Brace diagonally and put together with long woodscrews. Here's a sketch with 2 diagonal braces, one in front of the butt-joined horizontal and vertical parts, one behind. The diagonals might need to be mitred. Yes, you could use fancier joints, or T-plate brackets, but 2x2 is thick enough that you can screw into the endgrain for this sort of thing

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Chris H
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Can you hang the piece off something solid, using the whatever mounting holes it have? An appropriately sized wire threaded through will do.
Check if the mounting points don't have a tight tolerance thread, as you probably don't want to get paint in there. A large diameter screws won't mind though.

Thomas
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