Painting is enjoyable, rewarding, frustrating and full of techniques to help things turn out. However I’ve never painted with tape since bleed through(under) seems to happen even with the best tape jobs and it’s gets easier with the brush with practice. I’ve never understood how some painters can get a 100% perfect line between two colors on a textured wall–until today.
You know how paint is sucked under tape if there is the slightest gap as there always is on sheetrock texture. Instead of fighting this a painter on our current job simply uses that to his advantage.
He paints the first color past the transistion point and lets it dry. He then tapes the line and paints the first color over the tape and lets it dry. This seals the tape and any bleed through under the tape is the correct color so it doesn’t spoil the line. Then he paints the second color and pulls the tape. Perfect line. Now color changes at bull nose corners won’t bring on a panic and the shakes.
I may be the only person who hasn’t seen this, but over the past three years I’ve read and practiced a lot of painting, not to mention bugging any new painters for tricks and tips without hearing anything nearly as cool as this.
Cheers,
Don
Replies
That's awesome. My wife loves to have different colors in every room, the transitions always drive her nuts. I am getting big points for this one!
Thanks,
TTF
Ya shoulda ask here three years ago.
DW used that same technique in faux painting a bedroom with vertical stripes about six years ago. She got the technique out of a faux painting book.
Dave
One thing though is to give the first coat more than one day to dry because the paint "will" pull off if its not 100% dry even with blue tape. Trust me.
Personally I don't care for tape to cut in. The only problem cutting in two colors I run into is the spackle line that is dead in the corner. The inside corner is never 100% crisp like as if you folded a piece of paper in half. There are ups and downs in any well spackled corner and no tape is going to change that nor will the tape conform around the ridges formed by spackle.
I find cutting in by eye far superior so as to be able to determine which side of the ridges are less obvious to paint as seen from below...to the average eye.
My second pass touches up areas that bothered me the first time around. Between the two chances you get the results are pretty decent.I won't lie...I'll even go backa third time in places that "really" bother me.
All my rooms are different deep colors. Ceilings are off whites. Dining room is a coco brown, family room and kitchen a deep green, office/puter room,red ...master bath is an aqua blue, living room is red wallpapered walls and a baby blue ceiling and linen and Navajo white trims in the house. meditation room is the same blue and Navajo white...not to mention any cove/crown ceiling trims that are painted semi...
Painting is not enjoyable! Its a lot of hard work.
Its those spackle ridges with 2 colors that bother me the most....and people that say its enjoyable : )
Tiling is enjoyable...lol
Being anal I reckon
andy
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First, I'll say that that is an interesting technique. I'll have to remember that.
>> One thing though is to give the first coat more than one day to dry because the paint "will" pull off if its not 100% dry even with blue tape. Trust me.
Personally I don't care for tape to cut in. <<
You saved me some typing. I've seen huge messes created where blue tape was applied to week old wall paint so the trim could be cut in, and then, when it was removed, not only did it pull off spots of the new wall paint, but spots of the drywall paper was pulled off too!
I don't know much of anything about faux paint jobs but other than that, I say that using tape in this fashion for general wall/trim painting is not what professionals do. At the very least, there are other types of less sticky tapes - green, purple, brown paper roll strips with minimal mastic, that is less likely to cause a disaster. Still, I think it best to let paint dry for a month before taping over. Few professional jobs have a schedule that could support that. As far as I'm concerned, tape should only be applied to unpainted surfaces - like cabinets, counter tops, etc. except in perhaps cases where there are paint color transitions in the middle of the wall and taping can't be avoided.
OTOH - maybe oil paint is different?
To me, using tape to cut in normal painted wall/painted trim situations is just trying to substitute "tools" for skill. I'm not a painter, and this is just one of the reasons.
Edited 12/9/2005 7:12 am ET by Matt
Cutting in trim with a brush on new construction isn't seen much anymore, except for touching up the very edges after everything is sprayed.
On our houses with paint grade trim, the drywall is taped, everything is sealed with a primer/sealer, then texture, then a primer for paint. Trim is installed and nail holes spackled and sanded. Then another type of primer for the trim, caulking, trim paint, trim is taped off, wall color sprayed, tape removed and edges straightened with brush.
On bull nose corners where two colors meet most painters end up with a slightly wavy line. Our current painter with the tape trick makes a perfect transition between the two. He starts with a primered wall and in the same day he'll paint, tape the transistion, overpaint the tape, paint the second color and remove the tape. It's pretty standard 3m blue painters tape, not the specialty tapes. My guess is he gets good results without the tape pulling paint off because of the good primered base, good quality paint and the tape is always new.
Cheers,
Don
I'm a fellow analish painter. :-)
For cutting in something that needs to be exact I'll usually use the best quality angled 2-1/2" brush for the first coat. Then I've developed a fondness for a 1/2" angled artist's brush for fine touchup of the line. I've used a few different kinds and have settled on a good quality one that really works well, although it just has a number and no brand so I can't even say who makes it. My painter friends have made fun of the little brush until they use it.
Recently I ran across a 1" angled artist brush that spans the gap between the 1/2" artist brush and the normal painters brushes. It's not for high production and was nearly $35, but it has turned out to be money well spent.
Good painting,
Don
Whenever I use tape, which is infrequent, I press down on the edge of the tape with a plastic putty knife. It helps a lot to reduce (but not eliminate) wicking under the tape.
I hadn't heard about the technique you mentioned, so thanks, I look forward to giving it a try.
-Don
Don and All: This is a great thread, I've experienced almost all of the problems discussed and find painting terrible frustrating and very rewarding if and when it comes out right. At the moment I am working on my breakfast nook which has many layers of latex on top of old, I guess, oil which is still in decent shape. The layers of latex are peeling off with only a few places firmly attached. I'm stripping off most of the trim and trying to find the places on the wall proper where it hasn't adhered. When I'm satisfied with the prep a two color scheme is going on, I'll use the taping techniques you all are talking about. It just takes sooo long to prep this old stuff where paint was just slopped on several times in the past, the question for me is: is it worth the time and effort to make it come out right or would it be better to rip off all the trim, recase the windows and cover the old lath and plaster with sheet rock and retrim. Duke
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Making old trim look new is hard indeed! Hand sanding isn't fun, but hard to avoid. Rubber sand paper holders in various profiles are almost essential to keep the profiles sharp while getting good sanding coverage. Woodcraft has a few sets and all of them together are only about $25 or so.
A high build sanding sealer/primer makes the job of smoothing out the old brush marks easier if it's possible to spray the area.
If it were my house I'd probably lean toward saving as much of the old trim as possible, unless it was a simple profile. It is rewarding to restore old stuff to look new.
Having said that, there are multiple advantages to tearing out the old plaster and replacing the trim. All it takes is time and money. :-)
Don