Wifey wisdoms

[J. Dillon]

Great weather today in the NE for painting. smile.gif I all ready prepared the topsides for the job, so on to it I went. Opening the can ( almost full to the top) I found a skin. :eek: I had cleaned the lid and pounded it tightly closed last year and never thought this would never happen.

SHMBO has for years saving her left over house paint (even little drabs) in glass jars. :rolleyes: ya know the ones with the gasketed lids. I knew of this practice but ignored it. redface.gif Thinking about breakage. :eek: After screening my can of skinned paint and applying it to the boat, I checked over her assortment of bottled paint. Every one was skin free. :cool:

Ya know I'm going to adopt this practice and label the bottle as to its contents, just like she does. Breakage ... be carefull or maybe insert the bottled paint into a close fitting plastic " jacket".

I wonder if it will work with varnish ?? :rolleyes:

JD

[NormMessinger]

I tired that with Petit Trailer Coat. It not only skinned over but it sealed the lid so tight it could not be opened. I've had it do the same with the can as well. It is almost impossible to clean the rim and lid enough so that the lid is not destroyed when opening the can after a few weeks. But that's sort of off the subject.

I wonder if the reason Wife's paint does not skin has more to do with the brand of paint rather than the method of storage method.

Kirby suggested splashing a small amount of thinner on the surface just before the can is closed.

Some claim breathing in the can to replace O2 with CO2 works. Yeah right! Others try to replace the O2 with propane from the torch, or store the can up side down. None work for me though some brands of paint and varnish will not skin even if I do nothing.

Kirby also told me that the skin does not degrade the paint, just peal it off and yer good to go.

[Bruce Taylor]

Storing the cans upside down seems to help.

[JimConlin]

All is not lost.
Get a clean new paint can or a jar or...
Using a sharp knife, cut the skin out.
Strain the rest with a paint-store strainer or SWMBO's pantyhose.
If you use the latter, she won't want to use 'em again, so get approval.
Thin it a bit more.

[J. Dillon]

Norm, I tried all the things you mentioned , breathing, up side down, c02, thinner on thr top etc. :rolleyes:

I'm convinced it's a conspiricy by the paint manufacturers to make the consumer buy more paint. :mad: It's the space age, surely they could engineer a better lid that what is dumped on the public. :mad: :mad:

Jim, I did strained the paint and applied to the boat, but the bottle approach is the course for me. :D IT works for SHMBO it should work for me ;)

JD

[Ken Hutchins]

Right on with the weather, I opened a gallon can of vanish yesterday with only about a quart left in it.
NO SKIM after about 6 monuts. I use thinner (mineral spirits), in a gallon can about a cap full from the spirits can, very carefully dripped on the surface of the varnish, then seal the can be pressing down don't pound on it, then carefully put the can in storage. Don't disturb the thinner on the top. vibration will mix it.

[JLM]

try cutting plastic circles(think trash bags) 1" bigger then the paint can and place it over the top of the paint
making sure there are no air bubbles and the edges are tight to the sides. this should take care of your skining problem.

JLM

[Todd Bradshaw]

My wife has one of those cheapo kitchen vacuum sealers that look like a mini bicycle pump. You see them sometimes in kitchen gadget stores for about $15. You put something in a glass jar that has a good rubber sealing ring in the lid or a Mason jar, punch a pin-hole in the lid, cover it with one of their little band-aid like sealing patches and pump the air out of the jar. Whenever I have expensive paint left over or when I mix my own color and want a supply of touch-up paint that matches perfectly, I put the leftover in a jar and vacuum seal it.

After pumping out the air, I usually add a strip of clear packing tape over the band-aid sealer, just to be sure. You can stick it on a shelf, leave it for three years and when you open it all you need to do is stir it. It looks exactly like it did when you put it in there and at the price of good paint or varnish, the gizmo will pay for itself just by saving a couple partial cans of paint.

Here is the dope on the sealer:
http://www.pump-n-seal.com/

[Dave Hadfield]

I too store the cans upside down. As long as you don't pound on the lid with a hammer, they don't leak, at least not that I've seen.

It's strange to open it later and see the varnish held right up to the top by a skin on its bottom....

[Bruce Taylor]

And then, there are the collapsing bottles that Lee Valley sells.

http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/woodworking/finishing/62k0401s2.jpg

[Harry Miller]

I was just going submit a post about my wife's genius but it'l go nicely here. I'm practicing lofting for my next project. The whole boat is only going to be 7 ft long but I'm going to build it half size first. Well the lines on a 3.5 foot boat are pretty curvy and no matter how skinny or of what wood I made them the battens were snapping left and right. I was ready to try dental floss. So she tried to help me got bitten by one of them and told me to go upstairs to my other hobby room (picture framing) and get a long piece of mat board. This worked perfectly. Our marriage (34 yrs so far) has always worked like this we may never think out of the box but at least we've got different boxes. smile.gif

[J. Labaree]

Breathing into the paint can isn't going to do much good. Your lungs don't extract all that much oxygen. You breath in about 20% oxygen and breath out about 15% - not a significant difference. That’s why mouth-to-mouth resuscitation works.

[J. Dillon]

Todd,

Thanks for the site and info on the vacuum pump. It sound workable and I think I'm going to give it a try.

Bruce,

I tried the collapasing bottles before for glue in model ship building but could never get them big enough for surplus boat paint. I understand photo supply places have them in larger sizes.

Harry, I rember years ago going down to a subsidiry of the US patent office in NYC.to poke around about an idea I had. It sure was an education. I saw the professionals searches with their breif cases but the thing that got me was to see the house wife types dragging little ones while searching the files to see if any body else thought of the kitchen gadget she came up with. Never under estiamate a woman I always say.

I also found out that dentists have a surprising numbers of patents. I guess another way to hold your mouth open or yank your teeth out will always be popular with them.

JD

[Bayboat]

There's a product called "Bloxygen" that comes in a spray can containing inert gases. You spray a bit into the part-empty paint or varnish can, to replace the air, then clap the lid on quickly. When you reopen the can there's no skin. Have a look at www.bloxygen.com. (http://www.bloxygen.com.)

[Wild Wassa]

I cut my losses as a boat painter. I buy small quantities, I get good longevity. I don't waste paint. It is the volume of air above the stored paint that causes the problems.

I'm happier to buy five, 1 lts (at a time), rather than a 5 lt, in the marine paints, if I know the painting will be slow. There is a difference of $25AU, over all, that's all. The paint is kept clean as well. I'm only using water based polyurethane paint (I'm not storing enamels or acrylics).

One problem is batch changes. This requires me to 'box paints' (blend) sometimes.

My old boss would buy a year's paint and epoxy in one outing to save a few bucks. He eventually learnt due to the wastage. Over the last two years we only used polyurethane, and a little bit of Deks. Deks goes off quickly in our hot climate.

Warren.

ps, plenty of times (last year) the paint was off when we bought it. 5 lts is a lot to dump in one hit. Also you couldn't keep opening 5 lt tins, the lids would eventually collapse and give a bad seal after only three or four opennings. I use BC P's products.

[ 04-23-2003, 07:43 PM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Shang]

"...Strain the rest with a paint-store strainer or SWMBO's pantyhose.
If you use the latter, she won't want to use 'em again..."

Oh...I thought that was why they called it bottom paint.

[Alex0312]

I have had good luck with storing paint in coffee jars. The metal ones with the plastic lid. Just put the paint in and put gas from a torch while closing the lid. Paint that i used a year ago only had a thin film on it. Just luck i guess.

[capt jake]

Wifey wisdoms???

I make ALL of the important decisions!! Thus far, I haven't had to make a single one!!

:D :D :D

[TomMcKinney]

I believe Payson suggests a wax paper circle floated on top to seal up the paint. I go for the use all the paint method myself--if I just have a bit left over, the extra saw horses get a new coat of whatever color/type.
Tom