Painting Straight Lines

[Andy78]

Hey All,

I am painting my living room, and I would like to paint the walls a different colour to the ceiling. The ceiling being a lighter colour to the walls. I have square set edging.

I have tried taping before and this can lift the paint. I was wondering what people can recommend to get a nice straight line between the walls and ceiling colours??

Thanks

[bitingmidge]

Practice.

(but you can also buy tape with varying degrees of stick for exactly that purpose, go to a trade supplier and ask. I think it's light blue, almost no stick at all really)
Cheers,

P :D

[silentC]

By hand is the best way. Had a mate do most of the painting at my place and he had a roll of that blue tape. Once or twice it bled through. Steady hand and a good cutting in brush is the way to go.

I once helped paint a private hospital. They wanted two tone colours with one colour from skirting to chair rail height and a different colour from there to the cornice. There was no chair rail, so we pinged a chalk line all the way around and cut in by eye. You get very good at it after the first kilometre ;)

[bennylaird]

Invest in a good brush and most of your prolems are solved.

[Andy78]

Has anyone used a metal straight edge?

[bennylaird]

Great for the first line but a pain to keep cleaning it. The steady hand with the good quality brush is the way to go and or course, use good paint.

[silentC]

The problem with paint is that it is based on a liquid which is subject to capiliary action.

If there was an easier/faster/better way, believe me the house painters would be on to it.

If you really want to try the handyman approach, get one of those pads with the rollers on the edge.

[bennylaird]

If you really want to try the handyman approach, get one of those pads with the rollers on the edge.

Again great till the rollers get paint on them, I tried one and threw it away in disgust. Must be that I'm getting better at it after practice but it no longer seems an issue since I swapped to a good brush, much faster now and so easy, use long steady movements rather than short strokes.

[Andy78]

Thanks for the help. I think I am just going to have to give it a go with a good brush and a steady hand. Any particular size brush? And if it doesn't work out I'll just have to use 1 colour.

[woodsprite]

Lines can be a pain! With our extention and additional reno's - 4 bedrooms, a long passage way and a bathroom, I used teh light blue painters tape. It comes with varying sticking times - eg 3 days, 14 days, up to 60 days. Has a light but firm adhesive action and presses down easily - and can be lifted and stuck down again if needed - and does not allow the capilliary flow under the edge. Plus it pulls off very cleanly when the paint is dry.
I used the 60 day stuff because I didn't know how long I would need to leave it down and had no problems. Masked around windows, arch's and skirts, door frames, everything, then painted. And it was BLISS!
Maybe if you only have a small area to do, then by hand might be the go, but for anything bigger than 1 room I woudl strongly suggest getting stuck into the tape (so to speak). Worked well in corners too, where we had walls of 2 different colours joining in the corners. And just brilliant for masking the cornices off from the lining board ceilings.

Happy painting, however you do it....
Jeff

[woodsprite]

forgot to mention - a good quality cutting-in brush is a must, but make sure it has a reasonably firm 'action'. We tried a couple but one was just too soft in the bristles to control properly and the bristles were too long. Wound up using a brush that was about2 inches wide with a bristle length of about 3 inches. These were good synthetic bristel numbers - pale blue bristles and not too expensive, just really good.
Jeff

[silentC]

does not allow the capilliary flow under the edge
Oh yes it does! I've seen it with my own eyes ;)

The other problem with using tape is that you can lift the new paint when you pull it off, leaving behind a tear. Needs to be removed while the paint is still wet, or you need to run a knife over it (depends on the situation).

I use a 3" oval brush (Rota-Cota I think).

[chrise]

Scotch 3M put out a product called "safe release painters masking tape" its a low adhesion 7 day removal tape and it works a treat. Product code is #2070. Availabe at most good hardware shops. As we are reno'ing our house my partner wanted lots of feature walls. *sigh* We used this tape for the feature walls to get straight lines and I put it on top of 2-3 day old paint and it didn't lift a single bit of the new paint off when removed. It also is very easy to unstick and stick again to get true straight lines. This tape when removed leaves a very nice sharp line. Like everyone here says get a real good quality cutting brush. I use the Rokset 38mm synthetic bristle (blue bristles) cutting brush with the longer handle (from bunnings) for my cutting and they are fantastic, worth every cent I paid for it. With any cutting on the odd occasion no matter how good the tape is you may get a minute amount of bleed through, I use the art brushes (purchased from Spotlight hobby section) to just touch up the odd tiny bit of bleed through that we got and it was a minute amount. Any straight line is only as good as how straight you put the tape on.


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[Ashore]

Good brush
Monarch cutting in brush , it is cut at about 30 deg across the face around $30 + for a 2" 50 mm and is fibres not brissles, can be found at bunnies.


Rgds

[silentC]

it didn't lift a single bit of the new paint off when removed
Just in case you misunderstood me, I'm talking about the new paint that you have painted over the tape, not the stuff it's stuck to. I've seen tape pulled off the day after the painting was done and it pulled up the edges of the new paint and tore lumps out of it.

Similar problem, I had to remove a powerpoint after the painting had been done. The painter had lapped the paint over the edge of the powerpoint and so when I pulled it off the wall, some of the paint came with it. Strong stuff, paint. Should've run a knife around it first.

[Andy78]

Thanks for your help guys.

I painted the ceiling first. After a few days I masked up the ceiling then painted the walls another colour. I did 2 coats around the edges. After the second coat whilst the paint was still relatively wet I removed the tape without any paint peeling off both walls and ceiling.

[AlexJ66]

Andy, have you tried those pads with the little wheels on the side?

I used those in our previous house for feature walls, and the new place for cutting in where the wall meets the cornices, and it works great. A lot faster and easier for using a brush, well for us amateaurs anyway :p

[JDarvall]

things that work for me...

focus on locking the wrist and elbow and moving the whole arm and body at the same time

Load the brush well on one side. ie. dip it about 1/3 of the bristles in, wipe it on one side, and then I present the unwiped side to the wall.

But when you put the brush on, place it off the line a bit, and watch how the paints swells up under the brush,,,,and then move the brush maintianing this swell at the very tip off one corner of the brush.....so you gotta get your eye in close.....you don't want the swell to be too great or else it'll drip to the floor.

The gist of it is......your squeezing at one side of the brush at all times to push the paint to the very corner your running the line on, so its kept loaded for as long as possible......cause its the stopping/re-dipping of the brush/finding where you left off process that kills the line.

But when theres no paint swell at the tip of the brush.....stop and redip...else you painting blind since the paints going onto the wall from under the bristles where you can't see.

Goodluck. I hate painting, despite it being my current job (just another week to go thank god).