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We have collected a few "do-it yourself" tips to make your jobs easier. If you
have any DIY tidbits that you think we should add to this list, e-mail them to
us at:
webmaster@sashco.com
Did You Know:
1. Your caulking bead can stay neat and even?
Here is a trick to keeping that caulking bead looking straight and clean. Use masking
tape to tape off the areas around the area in which you are caulking, keeping the
two pieces of tape at a distance the size of the desired bead. Lay down your bead
of caulk. Use your finger to tool the caulk by pushing the excess onto the tape.
After tooling, you can remove the masking and you'll find a very nice looking straight,
clean, smooth bead of tooled caulk.
2. Car polish can give your shower a great shine?
Next time you clean your bathroom, get out your car polish. Rub a coat of polish
on your ceramic or fiberglass shower enclosure. You'll get a wonderful shine and
the water will bead-up and roll off before mildew or mold can begin to form. It
will make your next cleaning time a lot easier. However, DO NOT apply car polish
the floor of the shower - it would become a slippery place for an accident ready
to happen.
3. A paint stick is a great tool for smoothing caulk?
After you lay your bead of caulk, determine the width you want from tooling and
mask it off with masking tape. Next, take a paint stick and clip off the corners
to fit the desired width between the two pieces of masking tape and smooth out the
bead of caulk with the paint stick.
4. There's a way to unplug a used tube of caulk?
Take the tube and cut off the nozzle end so that the hole is slightly larger than
the first cut. Next, drive a screw into the nozzle end of the hardened caulk and
use the screw to pull the hardened caulk out of the nozzle. A screw with course
threads, such as drywall or deck screws will work the best.
5. Your chipped ceramic tile can be repaired?
It's very simple. All you need is appliance touchup paint. This paint dries to a
very hard finish and adheres well to smooth surfaces. Appliance paint comes in only
a few colors (white, almond, green, yellow and back) but it can be tinted with other
paint to match your tile.
6. You can cap-off your used cartridge of caulk?
You just finished your caulking job and there's product still left over in the tube.
Here's a couple quick ways to store your cartridge for later use. A plastic electrical
connector is an easy way to quickly seal and reopen the tube.If you can't find a
connector, place a 2" nail into the end of the nozzle, then wrap the entire nozzle
tightly in Saran Wrap® or Reynolds Wrap®. This will
keep the caulk in the nozzle from hardening for use at a later date.
7. Sun-damaged wood fibers can cause adhesion failure
in caulks?
Surface wood fibers can be appreciably damaged in as little as 2-4 weeks when exposed
to direct, intense sunlight. This has been determined by the USDA's Forest Products
Research Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin (in repeated studies over many years).
If a sealant (or a coating) is applied to such damaged wood, it can lead to premature
failure of the sealant (or coating) because the sealant can much more readily lose
its adhesion. (In reality, the sealant adheres quite well to the surface wood fibers
themselves, but the surface fibers lose their attachment to the bulk of the wood.)
8. Oil-based caulking compounds can cause windows to
"fog up"?
Make sure you never use an oil-based caulking compound around insulating glass ("thermal-pane")
windows. The vegetable oils in these types of caulking compounds aggressively attack
polysulfide polymers (the primary sealants used for such windows). The polysulfide
degrades, cracks and causes the window to fail and "fog up".
9. Shrinkage of a caulking bead is not necessarily
bad?
Sometimes "shrinkage" of a caulking bead is thought to potentially lead to performance
problems with the sealant. While this can occur with some types of sealants (silicones
and polyurethanes, for instance), for many other types of sealants it does not pose
a real performance problem. Such products as Acrylic Latex, Butyl, SBR, Polysulfide,
and others do not suffer severe performance problems when they experience a moderate
amount of shrinkage during their cure.
10. Elastomeric latex caulks need 1-3 days to cure?
Always give elastomeric latex caulks plenty of time (1-3 days) to cure before painting
them. The reason is that these types of caulk are much more elastic than any paint
that is applied over them and the paint can't stretch enough to avoid cracking during
the caulk's curing (and subsequent shrinkage).
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