Archive for Home & Garden
DEFINITION ALLIGATORING : You can almost imagine what this is by the name. If you can’t, it’s basically what happens when the paint cracks in such a way as to form a pattern that resembles alligator scales. It can sometimes just be affecting the top layer of paint and not be reaching the surface.
WHAT CAUSES IT?
There are a number of possible causes and I’ve listed them below:
- You may have painted over a glossy finish and the paint wasn’t able to bond with it properly.
- Using an extremely hard coating, such as oil-base enamel, (this dries very hard eventually), over a more flexible coating. The flexible coating can shift or expand and contract underneath the top-coat and cause the top-coat to crack.
- The effects of extreme climates (freezing and thawing) on oil-base enamels over time.
- Putting another coat of paint on before the previous one has dried. (Yes, I’m sure many of us have done that at some point!)
- Using too much paint per coat.
SOLUTIONS:
- By one means or another (scraping, sanding, paint remover) or a combination, get the paint down to the bare surface.
- Brush or vacuum off all the dust and make sure the surface is clean and dry.
- Prime the surface with a high-quality primer.
- Apply topcoat(s) with the desired finish.
All the best,
Perry
714 721 3050
Filed under: Home & Garden,Painting | cracking, paint, Painting|No Comments
Challenge: How can I make screwing screws easier on my hands? This seems to be a problem with people who have arthritis.
The Best Result: In the old days people would dip a screw in some kind of oil. This would make it easier to drive a screw in and made it easy to get it back out, but screw doesn’t hold well enough with the oil.
There is an even better solution. Rub the screw on an ordinary bar of soap. Again, this makes driving the screw easy, as well as removal, but it also gives it better holding power than with the oil. The screw will stay put much better. This method has the additional benefit of rustproofing your screw!
Make sure you use bar soap, and not just a liquid detergent.
Soaping the screw
Filed under: Elders,Home & Garden,Household tips | arthritis, screw|No Comments
Challenge: I have ants attacking my cat’s food dish. What should i do?
The Best Result: In addition to the Corn Meal trick (which will kill off the ants that come for kitty food, there are a couple of really quick methods of repelling the ants from getting to your cat’s food dish.
One of them is to simply draw a circle around the bowl with a piece of chalk. The ants won’t cross the line. They have to go elsewhere to find a snack, unless they can figure out how to build a bridge.
The other method, which is the one that we use quite a bit here at Admiration Ranch, is to put a moat around the food. You simply put a small food dish inside a larger bowl with water in it. The ants can’t get past the moat, again that is unless they can build a bridge.
Cat Food Moat
Filed under: Bugs,Home & Garden,Pets | ants, cat food, pet food|No Comments
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