Cocking

First off, let me apologize for how my mind works. That title was just to get you here. I didn’t think the title Caulking, the actual topic of this post, would be as alluring to the general public. Caulking is actually mispronounced as “cocking” by a large number of people. Just ask any hardware store associate! I threw in the picture of fowl to convince the social media police to keep their minds out of the gutter while I employ my knowledge of the English language. Cocking can also mean tilting the head to the side, but that’s more of an action, and I digress.

A month ago, it was suggested that I write about painting for a home improvement magazine. In the past week, I’ve had two people intently observe as I caulked in their homes because they wanted to learn. Those moments led to this post. Homeowners across the state would like to improve at this skill that I stumbled upon a few years ago. I’ve developed into damn near professional status at caulking cracks and now is a great time to impart the knowledge.

I’ve professionally painted since 2018. I slung paint for many more years before that, but I was only paid in the form of food and drinks back then. As with any job, I always performed to the best of my ability with what my experience had taught me up to that point. In other words, the school of hard knocks and repetition is how I learned to paint. I never went to a formal painting school nor worked for a painting company. Along the years, each project has offered a lesson, sometimes large, sometimes minuscule. For example, an extra stir stick is handy to keep on hand as it can be placed inside of a hole as a brace for a drywall repair piece. Or, Vaseline seems to always do the trick when doors have creaky hinges. Three years ago, I was blessed to come upon one of the big ‘aha’ moments. The newfound knowledge changed the trajectory of my work. Before then, I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know.

My kitchen cabinet project for a family friend started out on Day 1 per usual: top doors were unhinged & numbered & packed away in my car and top frames were sanded & primed. I went home for the day to sand and prime the doors. When I arrived back at the house for Day 2, magic had happened. The cabinets already looked noticeably better, but I couldn’t quite place what had occurred. My friend, who may or may not have slight obsessive-compulsive disorder tendencies, caulked all of the cracks above and around his cabinets before I could return for my second day of work. Immediately, I requested a lesson from him, learning that his former job was working in tandem with a plumber.

Last January, I posted the pictures above on my socials, stating that, “Caulking is a Big.Freggin’.Deal.” There really isn’t any better way to say this, but my customer this week tried, by saying, “I look at other cabinets that have been painted and they look like crap.” Caulking is the skill that, if mastered, takes the appearance of a paint job to the next level.

My father has always been a very handy man around the house, albeit lacking a smidgen on meticulousness. He helped me caulk the windows of my house once. I’m not saying he failed, as the cold weather and bugs definitely could not penetrate the slobs and gobs of sealant that he applied around each pane. What I am saying is that the job was done, but not pretty. The over-abundance of substance is the common complaint I hear about caulking. This leads to the first of two main tips on caulking: opening the tube. Slicing the tube of caulk open at a slant, giving it only a small hole from which to dispense, helps the product come out slowly. I try to cut as close to the end of the tube as possible. If the product struggles to come out, I move up just a bit for another slanted cut, just a bit larger.

After opening the tube, placing it in a caulking gun helps control output. (I honestly have never used a tube that didn’t require a caulking gun because I stick with how I was taught.) Now for the fun part… I squeeze the trigger while guiding the tip along the crack that is being filled. Next, I drag my pointer finger along the line of caulk, softly pressing it down into the hole. (I must provide a word of warning about the pointer finger step. I like to feel what I’m doing and, therefore, do not utilize work gloves. This results in a very sore caulking finger, as shown in the picture. A lady who worked for a paint company and caulked entire homes in a day told me she used sponges cut into small squares and a bucket of water for this step.)

And now the second of two main tips of caulking: using a damp microfiber cloth, wipe the line once again to clean up any excess goo.

I use DAP for Paint Projects, again, because I adhere to how I was trained and it hasn’t done me wrong. It’s also paintable, which is necessary in my line of work and very inexpensive, weighing in at under $5 for 10 ounces. The bottle says it dries in 30 minutes. That’s a lie, especially if the cracks filled were deep or wide. My rule of thumb is to wait as long as possible and then wait a little longer. If you can caulk and walk away for the day, do that. If you are antsy to get the project done, caulk and then do as many other things as possible before painting. An hour of dry time is good, two is better. If you move along too soon, the caulk will push out of place, have to be reapplied, and necessitate more waiting. I have discovered that priming before caulking allows all of the gaps to be more evident. The microfiber cloth is key here as it doesn’t scratch away the layer of primer when wiping. If more cracks are seen after a first coat of paint, no worries! Caulking simply needs to happen sometime before the last coat of paint is applied.

As I close, I must warn that some cracks and gaps are so vast that caulking alone will not suffice. In these instances, Backer Rod is needed to poke into the hole before caulking. Backer Rod is inexpensive, flexible, spongelike noodles that can be found near the painting supplies at hardware stores, or on Amazon, of course. The first time I encountered the words ‘Backer Rod’, they were rattled off by someone who was confident that I’d used the product to fill a space before. As soon as he walked away, I Google-searched Speedy Gonzales style. Whoever is responsible for naming painting products throughout the years must have had a great sense of humor.