I'd certainly recommend going the route of a properly applied complete finish system consisting of snadblasting, 90% zinc primer, epoxy-based oxide primer, and two or three topcoats of automotive acrylic enamel with urethane hardener, followed by any faux finish effects you desire. Do the faux finish stuff using the same automotive paints and don't worry about a clear coat. Clear coats are inherently weaker than pigmented paints so you really gain nothing except a chance that the clear will flake, chalk, craze or peel off.
One thing I'll add to the comment about making sure it is perfectly level and plumb is to carefully test the vane itself for sufficient drag differential between the arrow and the fletching. It looks, to me, a bit too evenly balanced to work well in a light breeze. I've found that you really need about a two ro three to one ratio of respective sail areas for the vane to respond well to moderate breezes. More if the mass is high.
You can test a weather vane using a good-sized fan and a cheap bicycle speedometer of the type that measures wind speed. These are definitely NOT snazzy highly accurate Bourdon-tube arrangements like on an airplane; they're little cheesy plastic things with a sail vane coupled to a pointer on a scale and about as accurate as a good guess, if that. They do, however, allow you to fiddle iwth modifications and get a feel for how they affect performance.
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Jake, I'd certainly
Jake,
I'd certainly recommend going the route of a properly applied complete finish system consisting of snadblasting, 90% zinc primer, epoxy-based oxide primer, and two or three topcoats of automotive acrylic enamel with urethane hardener, followed by any faux finish effects you desire. Do the faux finish stuff using the same automotive paints and don't worry about a clear coat. Clear coats are inherently weaker than pigmented paints so you really gain nothing except a chance that the clear will flake, chalk, craze or peel off.
One thing I'll add to the comment about making sure it is perfectly level and plumb is to carefully test the vane itself for sufficient drag differential between the arrow and the fletching. It looks, to me, a bit too evenly balanced to work well in a light breeze. I've found that you really need about a two ro three to one ratio of respective sail areas for the vane to respond well to moderate breezes. More if the mass is high.
You can test a weather vane using a good-sized fan and a cheap bicycle speedometer of the type that measures wind speed. These are definitely NOT snazzy highly accurate Bourdon-tube arrangements like on an airplane; they're little cheesy plastic things with a sail vane coupled to a pointer on a scale and about as accurate as a good guess, if that. They do, however, allow you to fiddle iwth modifications and get a feel for how they affect performance.