Painting your tools bright colors

[North to Alaska]

Curious what any of you use to paint your tools and chains etc? Just hoping for some pointers on what is durable enough to stay on while taking a beating. Especially my choke chains.
Tired of dropping stuff and having a hard tome locating them again.

[doc henderson]

I buy the large Rustolium cans of paint with a high flow nozzle.  I use safety orange and red.  help folks watch out for swinging chains and tongs ect and easier to find if one the ground or in the weeds for a bit.

[doc henderson]

[Jeff]

Orange is not a good hand tool color in the north. Blue is optimum.

[East ky logging]

I use the blue tree marking paint. 

[newoodguy78]

I'm in the blue rustoleum camp myself. Other than blue jays and the sky nothing else is that color around here. Can't tell you the number of times of lost wedges that were yellow, orange or red. 
Does rub off especially on chains but much cheaper than replacing lost items. 

[upnut]

Pink if you are secure in your manhood, nobody is going to steal pink tools...

At least that's what a surveyor I worked with told me...

Scott B.

[Magicman]

My stuff has Red paint.


And all of the hand tools have florescent Orange tape.  If you are after dark, a sweep with a flashlight will quickly find them.

[deckape]

I tie a foot long piece of flagging tape on each end of chain each time I use them . Paint everything else marking blue . 

[Ron Scott]

In the USFS we separated ready fire cache tools from the regular work tools. Fire cache tools were painted red, and the daily work tools were painted green.

All also had the USFS or US Gov't logo painted or etched on them. 

[Old Greenhorn]

Well I am cheap, old, and lazy. But I HATE loosing gear in the duff. When you drop a chain right by your foot, then turn back to grab your saw and can't see the chain you dropped, something has to change.  But I'm cheap, so when I am cleaning out old paint cans with odd bright colors (which I have NO idea how I got in the first place) I lay out a big sheet of cardboard from a box and lay the chain on that and spray the heck out of it, then flip the chain a few times and do it again.  Whatever colors, I don't care, just use up the paint and get rid of it. Nothing stays forever. Seems like fluorescent green is easy to find in the duff. It also seems no matter what color you use, there is some condition or season that obscures it. Even Orange. Tools hold color for a while, chains barely last a season. I don't paint wedges, just buy mostly blue (Madsen's) and some yellow (hardheads). Nothing shows up when it drops into 18" of dry powder snow.
 I just use up paint to clear the shelves of all the junk, anything but rust color is fine. I was walking a plot with a friend about 5 years ago and he found one of his chokers he lost there about 8 years before that.

[thecfarm]

I've got a few chains around here I have lost. 
The worst part is I know exactly where I lost them too. 
But saying that, I was digging a   out and leveling the ground after that and I found one of my lost chains. I forgot that place.
I even lost one in about 4 inches of grass once. 

[barbender]

I can honestly say I've never lost a choker chain.

[Raider Bill]

Oasis Blue

[Old saw fixer]

I like Logrite Blue!

[Magicman]

Yes, Logrite's colors stand out except my Green Hookaroon.  It is factory painted green especially for me and it is the only green one ever made.

[Resonator]

I was walking a plot with a friend about 5 years ago and he found one of his chokers he lost there about 8 years before that.

Yup, same here. I was logging in a patch of black cherry that I hadn't cut trees in for some years, and found a short choker cable I had made lying on the ground.
I always try to make a point of walking my winter logging trails right after the snow melts, and watch for any equipment that got misplaced. It's also a good time when there's no leaves or weeds growing up to walk the woods looking for any relics of previous ancestors. Back in the day garbage trucks didn't exist, and a lot of junk was just go thrown out on the rock pile or in the woods.

[chet]

Pink if you are secure in your manhood, nobody is going to steal pink tools...

We have a somewhat local construction company that paints all his equipment pink; bulldozers, excavators, dumptrucks, tractor trailers, pavers, everything. There's no question who's job it is when you see a big burly guy running a pink dozer.    I'll bet he never looses any equipment to theft either. 

[bluthum]

[bluthum]

I like blue, shows up well on the ground and such.
I think I just posted a picture in the previous post.

[Magicman]

Yes, that is a very unnatural color in the woods/timber and it is instantly seen.  

That was my original color but I needed paint and could not find any at the moment but they did have the florescent green which by default became my color.  I originally thought green would not work for obvious reasons, but the florescent surprised me.  

[doc henderson]

I will stick with red and orange. although not popular, i guess.      but I did order some fluorescent tape to also put on the handle

[Old Greenhorn]

It's funny, you never know what will really work. As I said, Iuse up the odd bright colors, just to get rid of them and I lay it on like Bluthum does, thick and ugly (btw, like those cable/wire pullers, I am always looking for some more, can't find them used anymore). I have to do them every year or so and grab different paint everytime to use up more. Funny thing, one of my 1/4" x 25' chains I use for general stuff like yanking logs off the pile, I painted with some godawful fluorescent green that I recall buying when I was about 12 yeas old. The can had little pressure left after 45 years or so and It went on in globs and clumps and was mostly clear, but that color, as little as it is, just shows up no matter where it lays and it has hung on for 3 years now. There is no figuring this stuff. Many times I leave that in the toolcat at Bill's and it is easy to find in one of his trucks when his guys think it's his and they take it for another job, ticks me off, but I get it back.
 If I ever actually buy paint for tool marking, I think I will go with the blue, seems hard to lose. But I still have a lot of junk spray cans to use up. I really have to clean that stuff up.

[Old Greenhorn]

I will stick with red and orange. although not popular, i guess.    but I did order some fluorescent tape to also put on the handle

Well you are in that high desert country, so maybe not as much general green stuff on the ground? I dunno, but it seems things vary by region, like humidity.

[Resonator]

We have a somewhat local construction company that paints all his eqipment pink; bulldozers, excavators, dumptrucks, tractor trailers, pavers, everthing.

That'd be Angelo Luppino Inc. I remember seeing his equipment about 30 years ago and doing a double take. That paint lasts for a long time too, one of the local big farms bought one of his old used graders at auction and you could spot that thing a mile away. 

Pink also works good for flatbed lumber tarps, nobody will steal them off a trailer.