Q&A for How to Prepare a Wrought Iron Fence for Painting

First, you have to clean off any dirt or rust that's on the surface with a scraper or power washer. To make sure the paint sticks, make sure you sand the fence too.

Painting pretty much anything at that temperature is ill-advised. All paints and stains have instructions on the can that tell the best temperatures and humidity levels for painting/staining. In temperauress as high as 95 or above, the paint is drying too fast to keep a wet edge, making brush marks more visible. It is also not a safe temperature for laboring outside for too long.

The rust inhibitor is the key to making sure the paint layer is strong so you don't have to repaint often. Skipping this step would mean you need to paint the fence again sooner.

Usually when it is time to paint, the entire wrought iron painted surface is already faded. Plus, a can of spray paint can go a long way, so I would just paint the entire area and give a second coat of paint to the bare area.

I would recommend not capping the hole. This prevents any water that does make its way inside from draining out. This will quicken rusting of the iron from the inside out, where you can't treat it. The proper, but most likely near impossible solution is to find out where exactly the water is infiltrating into your fence in the first place. Stop the water at the source One suggestion is similar to how you locate holes in an air bed; use a blower and place the nozzle on the known hole at the bottom. Then feel around for where air is forcefully escaping.