what is shellac and how does it work?
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| various shellac forms scraped and collected from the bark of trees |
I told him it was zinsser spray which contains the strong smelling but distinctive "shellac"additive.
Which you may or may not know is made from beatles wings? or so i thought!
Well its actually a secretion from a beatle called the Kerria lacca which consumes the sap from trees which it then secretes onto the bark, this resulting secretion hardens and is the collected by scraping from the branches.
It is the used in varnishes paints etc and is a constituent part of most stain blocking formulations, it also has that distinctive smell.
Zinsser products have this covers up product which is especially made to spray upwards onto ceilings without tipping the can, the clever nozzle it uses requires the user to simply press the plastic nozzle aside to produce a nice controlled upwards spray onto the offending stain, it does take a little while to dry but forms a very effective barrier to the unsightly stain.
My tip would be to apply it well in advance of over painting to prevent any hold ups.
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| Zinsser covers up stain block |
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The clever upwards spraying nozzle
Synthetic paint brushes or pure bristle which are best?
CHOOSING THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE TASK.
Without doubt the correct brushes for differing painting tasks makes things easier.
As a pro decorator you might own a huge armory of paint brushes but will usually end up using one particular brush more than others.
Lets call this brush the all rounder, a tool you simply cant put down i recently purchased a 2" Rembrandt synthetic brush and now find myself using it for most emulsion painting jobs and now cant put it down.
I have a good selection of brushes purchased mainly from online decorating tools and brush suppliers.
Brands including
Proform
Wooster
Corona
Hamilton
Rembrandt
Each and every brush is used for its own specific task and i with a small exeption would'nt be without any of them!
But trying to find good pure bristles is becoming quite difficult and there is just something about the way they perform that synthetic filaments cannot compete.
Pure bristle brushes wear down quite quickly and so the performance changes over time often they become a better brush, synthetics really dont wear down to any degree and require almost obsessive and routine cleaning and maintenance schedule to prevent them becoming crusty, clogged fit for nowt!
Without any hesitation the best pure bristle brush i've seen is the "Corona morro" its construction and bristle quality is superb and well worth the money.
SEE MY TRIMMED PAINT BRUSHES GALLERY HERE BRUSH GALLERY PHOTOS
Thursday, 26 January 2012Old mr hubbard
I was reading a forum and some one was asking how he could store old paint?
Well this got me thinking about what my first boss mr hubbard who used to get us to re use our old paint scraps or leftovers if you like!
He had a large wooden shed which stored all the paint equipment all very orderly and organised it was too, rows of shelves groaning with tins of all sizes brand names long gone like Valspar, berger, ring a bell with anyone?
on a quiet day we were instructed to brush out all the remains of oil based paints into a gallon tin as they were then.
we had to carefully remove the skins from the tins and some of these skins were crusty with age and the remaining paint was gloopy but surprised to still liquid!
once a gallon tin was full we had to stir the mixture of colours together it was always pink for some reason.
After hammering on the lid and brushing the lid top with a sample of the resulting colour we had produced and labelling the atrocious mixture "smudge"
Smudge was used for painting the inside of cast iron guttering and downpipes which was one of the jobs us young uns were assigned to do.
Hubbards painting and decorating was by no means a modern company it was a family business based on old fashioned values, trust, honesty, and above all high quality i miss those old days and loved my first job and intend to write about them and some of the old techniques in detail.
Thanks for reading and please share and pop by for regular updates.
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