Painting Aluminum Front Door

I installed a new aluminum front door on my house several years ago and never bothered painting it because it looked pretty good without paint. My wife decided to paint it one day while I was at work and didn't do a very good job. She only did one coat and you can clearly see it needs another. However, it has been this way for several months and the paint has peeled off in a couple areas. I thought of getting a can of spray primer and coating the entire door, then brushing it with latex paint. That way you wouldn't see the variation between the areas that peeled and those that didn't. Is this the proper way to handle this? I'd rather not strip the paint off, but if that's best then I can do that.

 

First step is to remove all of the loose paint and then I would sand the rest smooth. Then I'd prime and paint.

 

Are you sure it's an aluminum door? Except for screen/storm doors, I've only seen a couple aluminum house doors. You need to remove any peeling paint! I see no reason to use a spray can, brushing on 1-2 coats of latex paint should be fine.

 

Sorry, it's a fiberglass door. So why would the paint peel off so soon after applying it? D.the fiberglass doors need to be primed first?

 

I've only painted a handful of fiberglass doors and yes they should be primed first.

There are multiple possible reasons for it to peel; contaminants on the door that weren't removed prior to painting or wrong coating used to name a few. It's also possible the door was painted in the hot sun causing it to dry too fast and not get a good bond with the fiberglass.

The fix remains the same, remove the peeling paint [all or in part] and repaint making sure the right coating and prep is used.

 

I'm sure it was all the above. My wife painted it. She didn't clean the door, didn't prime it, and painted it in the dead of winter with sub freezing temperatures at night and baking behind a glass storm door during the day. Removing all the paint seems a little daunting. What's the most effective and least messy way to do so?

 

Sounds like that paint job didn't have a chance. Whenever latex paint freezes on a substrate it normally cracks and peels.

Usually a chemical stripper is the most effective way to remove paint but I'm not sure that is an option with a fiberglass door. I'd probably use a sander, maybe start out with a coarse grit to do most of the removal and then finish with a finer grit to get rid of any scratches from the coarse grit.