3 minute read
Ask a Pro
Q:
How do you use caulk and tape to achieve clean lines?
CHRIS BERRY (a.k.a. The Idaho Painter) is the creator of the YouTube channel Paint Life TV. Drawing from his 28 years of painting experience, Berry’s channel is home to more than 1,000 videos featuring how-tos, hacks and product reviews. TheIdahoPainter.com
A: I developed this technique years ago and have tremendous success with it. But, in some circles, it’s considered controversial. I’ll tell you why, and then I’ll tell you how we do it.
First, a lot of pros think that if you can’t paint a straight line without tape, you probably should be doing something else. I agreed for a long time but, over the years, I came to realize that I can mask a job, paint it, and pull it all off a lot faster than I can when cutting in freehand. If you put down enough tape, you get really efficient at it and the whole job goes faster—and it frees up your time to make more money. Plus, if you hire a lot of guys with zero painting experience, you can teach them how to mask, tape and paint a super-crisp line in a matter of weeks, not years.
Second, a lot of people will say you can’t paint over caulk. And, to a certain extent, they’re right.
You certainly can’t use an oil-based paint over latex caulk. For that reason, we only use this technique with latex caulk and latex paint. You also can’t do this technique with a flat paint, as it will crack. For the most part, the walls we paint are finished in a satin and this works great for that sheen.
One of the keys to being successful with this technique is timing. In order to get a clean line, you can’t let either the caulk or the paint dry. If that happens, you’ll end up with ‘shark teeth’ caused by paint bridging from tape to surface. What you want to do is apply your tape to the wall or baseboard. If you’re working alone, you probably only want to do one wall at a time to avoid the potential for drying as I mentioned. Once you have your tape firmly in place, you want to put a really thin bead of caulk on the surface of the tape just along the edge to be painted. I typically use a clear caulk, which is thinner than a white caulk, which has colorants that give it more body. But if you’re painting along a white baseboard, especially one with large gaps or cracks, you definitely want to use white caulk for both the heavier body and the white color.
Next, you want to run your finger over the caulk to smooth it out along the seam of the tape and the wall. Only a thin residue should remain on the tape and wall. Then you apply your paint over the seam using a soft filament brush. I like the Premier Hampton for this task. You want to use just enough pressure to get the paint on the surface, but not enough to force it under the tape. I avoid rollers because they tend to push paint under the tape. Once you’ve got the length of tape painted with your first coat, you want to immediately pull the tape. You’ll end up with a clean line, even on textured walls.
If you’re doing two coats, you want to tape and roll to within 1/4" of the masked baseboard with your first coat. Once that’s ready for a second coat, you use the same caulk-tape technique and apply your second coat on the walls. Again, pull your tape while the paint is still wet.
Not everyone’s a fan of this technique but, for me, it’s been a huge time-saver and money-maker.
