johnthepainter

What's the most paint you've spilled, and where?

Schmidt & Co.

I once had a drop of paint fly off my brush and land on the drop. Kind of freaked me out, but that's it.

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Paul

modernfinish

Never spilled anything ,ever.

Zoomer

Best quote ever.

johnthepainter

I spilled a full 5 in a parking lot,,,and cleaned it up.
But the worst was spilling a quart of minwax stain on New beige carpet

johnthepainter

Yep,,,,spills happen,and we deal with them. Fun times.

Tonyg

You must be bored

Go read something...

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"Drudgery is honorable"

Ole34

Did you report his thread?.... Be honest

MikeCalifornia

I have yet to spill a drop, but I overspray everything. Does that count?

TJ Paint

One time...

And there was this time that...

Aw heck, it's too late to tell those stories.

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Romanski

3 gallons in a walmart parking lot (painting one, not walking out of the store with it) Cleaned up easy.

2 gallons of oil stain on a driveway.. What I thought was a step turned out to be a 1 1/2 foot drop off. I grabbed it from a garage and went out the front door (unoccupied house) rolled my ankle and of course the lid wasn't properly on (my fault for not checking, but I didn't put it away) thank god it was new construction neighborhood and there was plenty of sawdust.. took 10 minutes and it was gone. I think my saving grace was all the solids were at the bottom of the bucket and didn't budge, and it was basically just the liquids.

Gallon of white paint out the back of my truck.... I don't like talking about it.

About a quart on a tile roof... VERY end of the job.. there was 1 board that was in bad shape when we started, wanted to do a 3rd coat at the last second, on the back of an old house in a spot no one would ever see, to try to make it blend in with everything else a little better. Walked up the roof, tile cracked, i slipped and bam.. bucket goes over board. Wasent too bad just replaced 5-6 tiles which he had under the deck. Almost went home an hour early that day....

On top of a 3 story house, they had the chimney stack sided.... 10 ft high on a steep roof, it was dumb. Doing everything by pole and it was all rough raw wood, so I really had to get it in there... pushed a little too hard and the 4" frame snapped and hit the roof (of course where my drop wasn't covering) on the way down.

That's about all the spills I cringe about.

modernfinish

Okay I might have had a spill ... Leaving paint store had a couple sheets of 10' drywall in bed of truck gate was down ,put 4/ 5's on top . The tie strap wasn't strapped so tight first right hand turn and 2 of the fives launched out onto a major road right onto fast lane pavement .... I pulled over and debated what to do ... I grabbed the lid and bucket cause of account info on stickers. I will never forget the sound of hundreds of cars swooshing through through that puddle . Fun times.

CApainter

My worse spill.

I was cutting in my kitchen ceiling when I got distracted by the door bell. I set the deuce down on top of the fridge and climbed down to see who it was. After a moment of greeting the unexpected visit from a family member, I proceeded to offer them a beer. When I opened the fridge, the bucket toppled over me. I had paint every where. My sister couldn't stop laughing at me.

Talk about humiliation.

TJ Paint

This subject comes up every year or so...

First posted here...

And then posted here...

How to clean a gallon of spilled gardz from a concrete driveway:

1) use your favorite expletive, acknowledging your disbelief that there is a gallon of high adhesion, fast drying primer in direct sun and on the concrete.

2) After the shock, which lasts a couple seconds, the fight or flight mechanism in your hypothalamus area of the brain should kick in, if not, you've used high voc paint too long and probably can't read an entire sentence anyway.

3) Assess what items you have available that will aid in the cleanup. If you have a brand new box of wiping rags, you'll just have to bite the bullet here. And, a couple bucks on rags is a lot cheaper than letting that stuff dry too long. Do you have access to water? A hose? A bucket to contain and carry water? Its no time to be picky, grab that old 5er and get some water in it.

4) Ok, get the excess primer soaked up with your rags, or a dirty shirt, towels, your socks, something. This is crucial. You can't have all that runoff going all over the place. Containment is the name of the game.

5) Once you're left with the primer slowly bonding to the concrete, get water on that stuff. This will help slow down the drying and bonding process, and will buy you some valuable time.

6) If you made it to this point, you're a survivor, and true paint warrior. But you're not done. Nope. This last step is what separates pros from wannabes. If you stopped now, your're left with a big horrible spot on your customers beautiful driveway.

7) Here you must make a judgment call, based on the existing concrete and its condition. If its brand new or coated with a stain product you might be screwed, or at the least, you may be paying for a refinishing. If you are lucky and what is more typical is that the condition is decent, but has weathered a bit and probably has some rust, oil, or other stains that will help you out considerably.

8) You need something to rub that primer out of the grooves of the concrete. A deck cleaning brush might work, but I've found they don't perform too well. Some jerk told me to try a pressure washer, but then would have to take over an hour to get it and by that time the coating would be dried too much. I'd suggest a wire brush. Nothing will work as good to get in there and work that coating out of the concrete. And, if you keep the surface wet as you should, you won't create too many scratch marks. Scrubbing with the grain of the concrete will also help.

9) Hopefully after all this, you will have the driveway fully cleaned up to where the customer will never know what horror occurred. If they are home at the time and they discover the situation while you are cleaning it up and feeling stupid, well, godspeed. Try to blame it on your helper if possible.

10) Never set a gallon of gardz or other coating on top of boxes high up in your extended cab so when you open the door it falls out. __________________

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Gibberish45

My first boss told me he had a painter dump half a five of semi gloss over his vans engine when it caught fire on the side of the road. I don't know if it was already totaled but it sure was after that.

I always seem to have buckets knock over within a week of having parking lots paved/painted. It's happened 3 freaking times. Once to me and twice to two different painters working for me. I'm not superstitious but now whenever a parking lot gets paved I try to avoid parking on it, even if it means walking further.

JonPaint

It's not always about volume of a spill. Worst spill I ever had was working off of scaffolding on a cornice 3 stories up. I bumped a work pot off of a plank onto a lower plank,maybe 4 feet down. Thought it wasn't going to be too bad because most of the paint seemed to just have spilled onto the plank,but the up splash out of the can nailed every window screen,window sill,the brick wall and porch deck below. I had maybe a pint in the work pot. We had just removed the drop cloth tacked to the bottom of the cornice that was protecting windows from demo debris.

Jmayspaint

I was spraying a church steeple and the tip got cocked in the housing causing a back fire. White paint on hot shingles, bad. Fixed it with flat black rattle can, by some miracle no one noticed.
If the black graco brand tips get slightly turned they will backfire. Had it happen several times. Usually on roofs when I'm climbing around. Roof paint in your face sucks. The odd thing is the cheaper Titan and other generic tips won't do this at all. They just won't spray. It's a mystery

Joeb3rg

Stepped in a couple of trays , nothing too serious..my brother once spilled a fresh 5 in a contractors driveway.

wje

I just spilled my beer on my lap! This is devastating!

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P . J .

I went to shake up a gallon of red paint and the lid was not tapped it . Red paint went everywhere on the light beige carpet . Stressed out , until I remembered the HO was replacing the carpet . Relieved .