Painting tie wire?

I scrounged around the shop and came up with enough partial cans of oil base paint most of it flat that I think I can make a couple gallons of flat blackish/brown trap paint this year.
I'll have to pick up some acetone, but the paint will be free or already paid for at some point, I guess.
I've never painted my traps before, so this is an experiment for me.
I have the traps back to bare metal and pressure washed, a couple nasty rusty ones I was going to toss in vinegar and pressure wash them again.

I picked up a couple rolls of wire that I was going to degrease and try painting too........ maybe.
I suspect if I just dip the wire rolls in thinned paint, I'm going to end up with a big ball of wire all glued together?
I only water trap, with a couple racoon traps on land occasionally.
I don't use a ton of wire, but I still like nice clean wire when I do, and I've thought about trying a few snares this year so some may be used as snare supports too.
All water here is dark tannin stained, I don't know if it makes any difference, but I feel better at least with dark traps.

Anybody ever dip their rolls of wire?
Or should I say, anybody ever like it enough to do it again a second year?

No I never dyed wire. Don't see a need to.

Hmm I think if your tried to dip it as a roll, its not gonna give full coverage and what does get coated will get pulled off when you try to use it. Now if you wanted to precut the wires to certain lengths, you can do the wire straightening trick and using some pipe you could dip pieces and dry them pretty easily.

Except for use on coyotes and to a lesser extent beaver, I really dont see the need to paint your wire as most animals dont care.

I know a lot of guys don't.
Maybe it's just a warm-n-fuzzy feeling confidence booster for me.



I'm to lazy to precut and paint I think, or I don't care that much, I'm not sure which.
I might just meet myself in the middle, I'll degrease it, but not paint/dye it.

Wire has a million uses on the trapline and I like to keep a couple rolls of 14 and 16 guage in a bin. I hate spooling off a big greezy chunk though and potentially contaminating my gloves I'll be using later for K9s (mostly wolves). So, I degrease the wire and boil in the the dye pot after I'm done with traps. Cold soaking it works too - you can just pour the dye water in a bucket with wire, tools, etc. I wax the wire too in a separate pot of old wax I keep for cat traps, tools, etc. You have to bang it out pretty hard when you pull it from the wax or it clumps up. Imagine your paint might be the same way. Definitely think it's worth what little trouble it is to avoid a greasy or rusty mess.

Let us know how it works out!

Jumper - same reasons here for wanting clean wire. Clean everything and then greasy wire.

I have tried to degrease rolls of wire and it never gets clean in the roll.
How do you get it clean.

I have a few rolls of pvc coated wire for when I want clean wire. It comes in a few colors but I buy the green for trapping and yellow for in the shop
No grease and no rust. It's held coons, rats, mink, possum and skunks on my line

Yup, not worried about the color so much, but once you degrease it rusts really badly and then you have rust all over your hands, gloves and anything else you touch. Which is what I usually end up with. But what I prefer and works great if I remember to do it is to just throw the roll of wire in the dye pot and dye it like you do traps, keeps it from rusting and protects it nicely.

I agree, but that's my problem I don't have a dye pot this year.
I degreased my wire in some RC lacquer solvent that I had, then pressure washed the rolls with warm water.
Then tossed them in a bucket a vinegar that I was de-rusting a couple nasty traps in. They look like they came out really clean.
I decided I'm going to try and paint dip them and see what happens.

I have to admit, this whole processes of cleaning and prepping my traps to change from dye to paint has turned out to be way more work than I thought it would be.
Maybe next year I'll be glad I did it, but at the moment I'm regretting it.

I have never painted rolls of tie wire. I have waxed many rolls over the years that has worked well for me.

Paint your house not your traps! Only exception is a Little paint on your snare locks!

I have vinyl siding, so I needed to find something to paint.
We'll see, maybe next year I'll be stripping paint and going back to dye.

I hope the paint works good for you. I have tried paint and a few water/gas dips before. I tried dipping some snares once, gummed them up bad. I use the same methods as Jumperzee does! They are time proven and will work well. Some people like paint? I love the smell of sagebrush tea and trap dye!!!

I am Sorry for being so Blunt. My mistake, have a Blessed Day!!

No worries man, I didn't think you were overly blunt at all, I was just joking around.
I was on the fence about trying it anyway, and know full well I may end up regretting it.

Take it from a guy that’s tried everything ( painting traps not wire ) I consider myself lucky that I only painted a half dozen traps once. After the first year I thought I had done the right thing . After the second year I had rust, no problem a little touch up with a spray can and problem solved. The third year , where is all of this rust coming from. Time to re dip ! Now I have a double thick coat of paint but still had rust before season started. The only plan I could come up with to fix the problem was to strip away the old paint by a chemical process or by sand blasting . I chose to put sand blasting media in my cement mixer and let it eat the paint away. It kinda worked ! It cleaned them up enough to repaint and I gave those traps away to a young man that was just getting started .

What I’ve come to realize is dying and waxing is a pain but it solves problems that paint will not. The dying process “ eliminates “ rust and the wax protects the result. Once finished, the repeat process the following year is just that , a repeat. Get the dirt and crud off and put them in the dye pot, they just keep getting darker with age.

I haven't painted anything yet, but man I'm really starting to rethink this whole paint thing.
I have everything cleaned and hanging in my shop, waiting for my final decision.
Buildup and future recoating has been on my mind since I started thinking about painting.

Can't beat the old dye and wax method. I have tried and used most every trap treatment method in my lifetime. When I am on the road and have to retreat some traps I try to find a car wash, spray my traps and muddy equipment that needs cleaning and take them back to my camp and re wax them. I carry my wax bucket on the road for long term trips on a line.

I am good to go then. If I can't find a car wash, I find a creek or local pond and scub them with a brush I carry with me all the time. Let them hang and air dry as best I can.

And there ya have it. The only wire I dip is snare supports with Formula One that is water based. It's the little things that add up over time.

You need the heat to trigger the tannin transfer to the steel to create a non rusting compound. Cold dipping will not do that for long term. New traps get degreased in purple power and waxed only for the first season then boiled in tannin and waxed the next year.

Well............. I think I may have decided to abandon this paint idea.
I just ran to town to pick up a few gallons of acetone. 33 bucks a gallon!
Even with my free paint that's still a raw deal! Almost cheaper just to throw out traps at the end of the year.

Logwood and find myself a new barrel to cook in seems like the direction I'm going back to now.
I guess I could peel some tamarack, but I might be too lazy for that..............

You are on the right path, keep going!! Read Jumperzee's post Again!!!!

I use my wire "As Is "

I run 12-30 coyote traps per season. All are spray painted flat, dark colors. Then dried for at least a couple days. Mostly to get rid of the odor. Then dipped in full metal jacket. Twice as per the instructions.

If I’m going to strip off last year’s paint, I do it in an old cement mixer with 1/2-3/4 inch gravel. About 6 at a time for 5-10 minutes per batch.

Spray painting 12-30 traps takes about half an hour. FMJ takes about 20 minutes, each time. I do all this when I stop trapping for the year.

Using cheap spray paint (flat primer works too) is easier tho not as cheap as log wood or nut hulls. FMJ is less dangerous and less time consuming than heating wax on a hot plate or open fire.

Time is money, gentleman. Clean-spray-dry-dip and be done with it.

In over 50 years, I’ve never dyed the wire. I doubt the critters see it and I’ve never had a trap stolen that was on a wire/cable drowner.

The wire visibility wasn't my concern, it's the odor. The wire I get is almost dripping with oil. Just a little handling and the oil mixed with the mill scale from the steel and my hands are black and I can easily smell it.
So in the past I boiled to rid it of that mess then dyed it to keep it from getting as rusty.