painting galvanized pipe

Spray or brush it with an etching primer first, then with the topcoat of your choice.

I'd be a bit dubious about 1/2" water pipe. It's a bit floppy even for holding push-bikes.

Mark Rand RTFM

Spray galvanize then overcoat that with spray can of your color. Martin :-) You want to paint over the zinc since it will dissolve off in acid rain and salt spray.

Mart> I'm building a bicycle stand from 1/2" water pipe.

Just spray paint the pipe. Spray a primer and then color shoot. Zinc dissolve in salt spray? One of the main places for Galvanized is around salt water. The Zinc will migrate to the scratched area. Dissolve maybe as a zinc anode on a boat, but the zince went to the less nobel metal.

I would tend to agree that 1/2" pipe sounds flimsy, unless you've got some unique design that gets around the issue. In case you haven't gotten too far into construction, here are photos of a buddy's DIY bike stand, for consideration.

(In the first one he specifies 3/4" pipe for the upright piece. I believe that's a mistake. Elsewhere you can see that he meant 1".

Zinc chloride. Zinc sulfate. Zinc coating lasts for many more years when painted over. It keeps metallic ions from flowing off.

Mart>> Spray galvanize then overcoat that with spray can of your color.