DIY Weathered Galvanize Blackboard Planter

Aged Galvanized Planter with Blackboard Accent – a simple DIY project, using only a few inexpensive products. This farmhouse style planter is a beautiful way to display your favorite flowers or herbs.

I purchased a galvanized planter a few years back and since then all it’s done is sit on my porch. In all of the time outside, enduring all kinds of weather, you’d think that it would look a little more worn than it does.  There’s just something I love about the look of weathered metal and this planter just wasn’t doing it for me. 

I tried a couple of methods that I found online to get that aged, weathered look, but none of them gave me the results I was looking for. After several failed attempts, I decided to try combining a couple of the methods and was pleasantly surprised with the results. The weathering turned out amazing, but the planter was still missing a little something, that’s when I decided to add a blackboard strip, like I did with my Herb Garden Planters.

How to Weather Galvanized Metal

The first thing that you want to do is remove the zinc coating from the galvanized piece. This can be done by covering the piece in an acid solution. There are actually several methods for obliterating the zinc coating.  

I used oven cleaner to remove the zinc coating. Simply spray the piece with the oven cleaner and let it do it’s job for as long as the directions on the can tell you to. The oven cleaner will eat through that zinc coating so that you can achieve that aged, weathered look. Rinse completely.

As you can see from the picture above, the oven cleaner didn’t get all of the zinc coating. To remove the last traces of the zinc, lightly scrub the piece with steel wool. Using the steel wool will also give the piece a rough texture so that the next step has something to grab onto. When you’re done with the steel wool be sure to rinse the piece and let dry completely.

Now that the protective coating of zinc has been removed we can get on to giving the piece that worn, aged, weathered look. This look is achieved by spraying the piece with a heavy coat of 2 parts hydrogen peroxide and 1 part vinegar. The piece will begin to bubble and start developing that aged weathered look.

While the piece is still wet from the peroxide/vinegar solution, pour a thick layer of salt over it. The more salt you use the more stippling you will see in the piece. Let it dry completely, being sure not to disturb the process. Touching it while it is still wet will give you undesirable results.

As it’s drying you’ll see some rust form on parts of the piece, this will only add to that aged, weathered look. When it’s dry, rinse the piece with warm water to expose the results. When the piece is dry spray with a clear acrylic sealant.

How to Add the Blackboard Accent

While the planter looks good as is, it needed a little something that would make it amazing, so I decided to add a little somethin’ that would do just that, a blackboard strip.

Tape off the section where you’ll be applying the blackboard paint. Also make sure that all of the area that is not to be painted is covered to protect it from any over spray that might occur. Then paint away, wait for it to dry and remove the tape, that’s it!

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