Have you ever heard the phrase, “like watching paint dry?” This statement infers to something that is extremely boring. Despite that watching paint dry is in fact boring, there are several things that can actually be learned from the paint drying process. Here are a few.
- When paint is applied to walls and ceilings, as it begins to dry, it starts to appear blotchy, as if you may have missed a spot. Not to worry, this is just a part of the drying process. Leave it alone, wait until it is completely dry, then do your inspection. This will quell any assumptions that it may not have been done correctly.
- Paint shrinks. Well, actually, it doesn’t shrink. The pigment/color has a carrier, such as water, oil, alkyd, or solvent. When those carriers are exposed to air, the carriers are evaporated leaving the thin layer of pigment on the surface.
- Joints and trim work. Even for tight joints, a filler must often be added for a seamless, long-lasting application of paint over a joint. That is where fillers like caulk come into play. Without a filler, a thick coat or two of paint can be applied to appear to fill a gap, but remembering in step two how the carrier evaporates, you will come back to find that only the thin layer of pigment remained and the gap is still there. Even if the gap is not present when the paint dries, there is the risk of structural shifting that will eventually cause the gap to be exposed thereby requiring a filler and repaint. Thus, you will get to watch that paint dry all over again.
There you have it. Reading this post was probably like watching paint dry, but now you know.
Carpentry Life 