Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua is a water-based, anticorrosive paint used to coat interior and exterior metal. The finish is ‘semimatt’, which to me just means ‘satin’ (roughly 40% sheen level).
Some people use Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua as a primer before coating with another product. The idea being that the Teknos Ferrex Combi does the heavy lifting (handles adhesion and stops corrosion etc), so your finished paintwork will last longer.
However, most people use Teknos Ferrex Aqua as a primer and topcoat in one.
This paint is touch dry after 3 hours and you can recoat it after 16 hours. Available in various sizes and colours.
My Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua Review
As a Painter and Decorator, I’m often asked to paint exterior metal work. I recently had to prepare and paint a Victorian cast iron canopy prior to being glazed. The glazing beads were in a terrible state, full of old mastic and rust.
I spent two days with a wire wheel on a grinder removing as much as I could. Now the temperature was about three million degrees when I was doing it, so I didn’t fancy fighting with Hammerite and going through a dozen brushes.
I spoke to the good people at Grays Decorating Supplies, and they recommended Teknos Ferrex Aqua in black. I have used loads of different paint products, and I know paint technology has come a long way in recent years, but can you really trust a water-based paint to hold back rust and last on metal? All without a rust primer? That’s the claim laid out by Teknos about their Ferrex Aqua.
I didn’t risk it in the end. I have used a lot of metal paints over the years, some of the best contain rust inhibitors, but I’ve always primed big patches of rust before using them. It’s still good to use an anticorrosive topcoat; it acts as a safety blanket. Exterior painting is all about preserving the surface you’re painting, and the longevity of your paintwork. That’s why products like Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua are so important.
So, I finished the prep, primed the rust, and then applied two coats of Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua. It was lovely to use and just glided on like it was a normal acrylic satinwood. I was using it all day, and not once did the brush go chewy or hard and at the end of the day, it washed out as if it was normal emulsion.
This is unusual for a specialist paint. You expect it to be difficult to apply because of all the other ingredients contained in the paint. All the stuff they add to handle adhesion and rust. Using Teknos Ferrex Aqua is like a breath of fresh air.
The finish is spot on too. No stringy brush marks, no fluffy bits, it was just nice. It was like a coloured film on the metal, and my customer was absolutely chuffed to bits with the way it looked.
As you can tell from this picture, the metalwork on the canopy was still very rough and uneven when I painted it, so please don’t take that as a negative about the paint (it’s impossible to get a surface like this completely smooth without replacing it). But you can see that the actual paint finish is great.
Final Thoughts
The only thing I can’t comment on is the longevity of the paint. Does Ferrex Aqua do everything that Teknos claim? If I painted over heavy rust with it and left it outside, how would it look in a couple of years? It just seems a lot to ask of a water-based paint. Maybe I’ll come back to this review in a couple of years to update it.
Review Summary
Teknos Ferrex Combi Aqua Review - Decorator's forum UK
A water-based adhesion primer, anticorrosion, and finish paint in one, used to coat interior and exterior metal.
Product Brand: Teknos
4.2
Pros
- Easy to use.
- Great adhesion.
- Nice finish.
- Available in tinted colours.
- Really nice to use.
- Rust inhibitors.
Cons
- I can’t comment on how long it lasts.
Absolutely love Teknos stuff. Very under-rated paint brand, been using some of their different products for a couple of years now and they’ve never let me down. Cheaper than alot of it’s competitors too.