On the Road to Home Repair
As some of you may know, I just put our house on the market. That means that I need to finally do all of those little projects I have been contemplating over the past few years. Patching pin-holes in the walls, touch-up painting, patio door fixes, and today's focus - re caulking the seam on the "love tub" in the master bathroom.
Running a bead of caulk is pretty straightforward - in theory. In practice, it can be tricky. In this case, part of the seam ran adjacent to part of the sink cabinet - about an inch and a half away. This meant that there was no way I could get the tip of the caulk tube on the seam much less at the correct angle to form the desired little bead. In this case, having a garage full of junk and left overs from previous projects allowed me to find a short piece of fuel-line tubing that could be inserted over the tip of the caulk gun and then flexed to deliver the caulk to the seam. Of course with the gun, the tube, and my fingers all down in this tight little space, I couldn't see a thing and had to caulk by feel.
All of the "how to" books speak of running a bead of caulk in one smooth motion from one end to the other. Never mind that the squeezing of the caulk gun trigger causes the gun to wobble with each pull. Then there are the tremors. No, I didn't knock off that bottle of tequila that sits in the back of the cupboard and as far as I know, I don't have MS or any other shaking type disorder, but I wound up with something that looked like I had applied it while tied to a jack hammer.
Oh well, I thought. I'll simply run a wet finger along the seam and smooth it all out. That resulted in silicon caulk squishing out on either side of my finger and building up on said finger so that in the end, I had two lines of caulk on either side of the seam and a big pile on my finger. No problem I thought, I'll wipe it off on a paper towel.
Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going. One attempt at repair led to another. In the end, I had caulk all over my hands, several paper towel squares loaded up with goo, and a seam that looked like it had been done by a drunk, palsied chimp.
When I went to the internet and googled up "silicon caulking" to see how it should have been done, I found this.
Now, where's that tequila?
Running a bead of caulk is pretty straightforward - in theory. In practice, it can be tricky. In this case, part of the seam ran adjacent to part of the sink cabinet - about an inch and a half away. This meant that there was no way I could get the tip of the caulk tube on the seam much less at the correct angle to form the desired little bead. In this case, having a garage full of junk and left overs from previous projects allowed me to find a short piece of fuel-line tubing that could be inserted over the tip of the caulk gun and then flexed to deliver the caulk to the seam. Of course with the gun, the tube, and my fingers all down in this tight little space, I couldn't see a thing and had to caulk by feel.
All of the "how to" books speak of running a bead of caulk in one smooth motion from one end to the other. Never mind that the squeezing of the caulk gun trigger causes the gun to wobble with each pull. Then there are the tremors. No, I didn't knock off that bottle of tequila that sits in the back of the cupboard and as far as I know, I don't have MS or any other shaking type disorder, but I wound up with something that looked like I had applied it while tied to a jack hammer.
Oh well, I thought. I'll simply run a wet finger along the seam and smooth it all out. That resulted in silicon caulk squishing out on either side of my finger and building up on said finger so that in the end, I had two lines of caulk on either side of the seam and a big pile on my finger. No problem I thought, I'll wipe it off on a paper towel.
Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going. One attempt at repair led to another. In the end, I had caulk all over my hands, several paper towel squares loaded up with goo, and a seam that looked like it had been done by a drunk, palsied chimp.
When I went to the internet and googled up "silicon caulking" to see how it should have been done, I found this.
Now, where's that tequila?
Copyright ©2003-2007 Phaedrous
posted by Phaedrous at 2:39 PM
3 Comments:
well that was a bizarre little link! may all your caulking look less like a palsied chimp running a jackhammer did it. hopefully the other minor repairs go well.
Oh cripes!! What an adventure that would be...
Try using a rounded stick sweety... like a popcicle stick..Works very well but they also make ones out of plastic. Hubby used them all the time when he sealed windshields. {and tubs}
You can also tape off each side and then just pull up the excess.
Now~~ pass that tequila!
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