paint experiments
Jul. 25th, 2019 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chhotiiI have many cans of really old latex paint. Words of wisdom from the voice of experience: Saving the leftover paint after painting might seem like a nifty idea, in case of the need for touch-ups, but it's not, really, at least not after a couple of years. Did you paint more than, hmmm, two years ago? Go, now, and take the lids off the cans (and put the cans somewhere like the garage so the smell of paint fumes doesn't bug you) because you want to dry out that paint before you ever start to think about moving, or reclaiming the space occupied by the cans, or whatever. Trust me, that paint is never going to do you any good. While you've busy making plans, life happens, and before you know it a bunch of years have passed and the paint is all separated and gloppy and fugly bits flake off into the paint when you open the can. You are not going to put that questionable paint on your walls and actually improve anything. After even more years, the lid of the can is going to rust, perhaps even to the point where you need to take a sledgehammer to bash the can open. Which you will have to do. Someday. The paint has to be opened up and allowed to dry out before you can dispose of it. You cannot throw an intact can of paint into your municipal trash, nor will 1-800-got-junk take it, nor will your town's hazardous waste collection. You can put it in a Junkster bag but it will cost extra. That paint is never going to be anything but a PITA ever again so get the lid off and start drying it out NOW.
I had started the paint-drying project before things started to get crazy with building permits but I have many more cans of paint to go. Why did I not just open all the cans when I started this process? I had run out of kitty litter, plus, I thought a bunch of open paint cans full of gloppy stuff would look eccentric to potential buyers, so I didn't want more going at once than I could hide.
My realtor is dubious of the need for kitty litter for this project. She says, just leave the cans open in the garage. I'm dubious. Some of the cans are mostly full and I have three weeks to make the paint go away. She said that the cans that still need more drying time at the time of the closing can go into HER garage at that point, but I'm not sure we can get the lids back on securely enough to transport in the car without spilling-- some of them were pretty stuck on with dried paint, and thus had to be pried off, and thus got bend in the process; others were rusty enough that the prying off process chipped holes in the lids.
I think I need to do some experiments to see whether mixing with an absorbent material speeds up the drying process. Get some kitty litter, shred some paper, and do a head to head comparison of the drying of straight paint, paint mixed with kitty litter, and paint mixed with shredded paper. Also maybe paint mixed with sand? I have about a gallon of play sand. I don't quite understand why mixing with an absorbent material is supposed to help, so I want to compare with mixing with a non-absorbent material. Stay tuned...
I had started the paint-drying project before things started to get crazy with building permits but I have many more cans of paint to go. Why did I not just open all the cans when I started this process? I had run out of kitty litter, plus, I thought a bunch of open paint cans full of gloppy stuff would look eccentric to potential buyers, so I didn't want more going at once than I could hide.
My realtor is dubious of the need for kitty litter for this project. She says, just leave the cans open in the garage. I'm dubious. Some of the cans are mostly full and I have three weeks to make the paint go away. She said that the cans that still need more drying time at the time of the closing can go into HER garage at that point, but I'm not sure we can get the lids back on securely enough to transport in the car without spilling-- some of them were pretty stuck on with dried paint, and thus had to be pried off, and thus got bend in the process; others were rusty enough that the prying off process chipped holes in the lids.
I think I need to do some experiments to see whether mixing with an absorbent material speeds up the drying process. Get some kitty litter, shred some paper, and do a head to head comparison of the drying of straight paint, paint mixed with kitty litter, and paint mixed with shredded paper. Also maybe paint mixed with sand? I have about a gallon of play sand. I don't quite understand why mixing with an absorbent material is supposed to help, so I want to compare with mixing with a non-absorbent material. Stay tuned...
