Did you know that it takes about 500 thousand sugar ants to equal one pound? Did you also know that there are so many ants on this planet that the weight of all of them combined would weigh more than every person combined? That’s a lot of these little guys!
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:
SOLUTIONS:
All the best,
Perry
714 721 3050
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
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
DEFINITION TANNIN: Okay, right from the start I suppose I should tell you what Tannin is. It’s something you’ve probably seen, a tan or brownish discoloration on the paint surface that the paint just won’t cover up. Here, courtesy of Wolman Wood Care Products is probably the best definition of tannin that I‘ve come across:
Tannin (or Extractive) Bleeding: Redwood, Cedar and Douglas Fir are examples of wood species that contain naturally occurring, water soluble chemicals that tend to migrate to the surface with exposure to extracting agents such as water. After rain or heavy dew, coffee or tea-colored stains may appear on the wood surface. If the wood is coated, discoloration of the coating may occur when tannin extractives are dissolved into the coating solution by water, reach the surface and remain as dark, coffee-brown stains after the water evaporates. This reddish-brown bleeding is unsightly, but not damaging to the coating.
SOLUTION:
This should handle most stain problems. However, it’s possible that some bleeding my happen within a year after you’ve painted the wood. Don’t repaint it as soon as this occurs. Wait a full year as this will let any remaining tannins to come to the surface where they will weather away naturally.
All the best,
Perry
714 721 3050