The Secret Caulking Tip That Will Transform Your Ability

So if nobody's ever told you the secret to caulking you probably hate it and every time that you do it it's a giant mess and a big epic struggle. So let's change that today. Today I'm going to share my number one caulking secret when it comes to caulking trims. Then we're going to go over the two slightly less important secrets that are going to put the whole package together and completely transform your caulking game. So the first tip that I have and the biggest one is really the holy grail of caulking tips. What you want to do is get yourself a really nice small tip on the end of your tube of caulking. Cut it on a bit of an angle the same angle that you're going to be holding the tube when you're applying the caulk. Cut it nice and small. If it's too small and it's squeezing out the back cut it slightly bigger. It's not rocket science here. Different caulkings have different viscosity so it's a little bit of trial and error but get it as small as possible on a bit of an angle. Then the next thing that I like to do with the tip preparation is get a little bit of a groove on there just so that it's going to ride nicer and it's going to just kind of it's going to want to hold the tip where it needs to be. I don't know if you've ever found that after cutting your tip and then caulking half of a tube three quarters of a tube all of a sudden it's like ah this thing is just gliding along perfectly and it's working great. So I like to put that little groove right at the start. I'll take two sanding blocks or a piece of sandpaper make a 90 degree hold the tube the way that you're going to orientate it when you're applying the caulking and just swipe it back like three or four times and you're going to get that little groove worn in there before you start. It'll make it a lot easier and then the final thing is I like an orientation line right on the very top kind of in line with the longest point of the tip. As you have the tube and you're navigating it around up and down and sideways that's just going to help you keep this thing orientated in the exact right position. So put some felt pen a nice orientation line will make a world of difference. Let's move on to the second tip. Get yourself a dripless caulking gun. Now the difference between dripless and just your regular levered caulking gun is just worlds apart. With the levered gun unless you're like a real professional that's been using the levered gun for a long time by the time you take your hand off the trigger and push the back of the gun you're going to get a little bit of ooze out the end of your tube and the next time you go to put that tube into the corner to start caulking again it's just going to make a mess. You definitely always want to have a wet rag with you on hand when you're caulking just keep that tip clean that way when you put it into the the crack it's not gonna it's not gonna make a mess. But with this levered gun sometimes you might forget it and then you go to pick it up and it's just a big pile of ooze all over the ground. With the dripless gun the beauty is once you release the lever boom it stops coming out the tip. You can keep a really nice clean tip it makes the whole job quite a bit easier. You can see the mechanism in action when it's released. Watch the back of the little rod there it goes back that takes off all the pressure and yeah these guns are amazing. So these yellow dripless guns are ones that I've used for a long time. I'm going to put links to these dripless guns in the description. There's also a newborn gun that is a little bit cheaper this one here is like 15 bucks the newborn version of this gun is 12 bucks. It's a little nicer actually it has some padding on the handle. So let's move on to the last tip we're getting practical we're going to put everything together the dripless gun the perfect tip. I'm going to show you the angle that you need to hold the gun at and the perfect flow rate for excellent results. When it comes to the angle you want to replicate the angle that you cut onto the tip originally. So just get a bit of a visual on that in this case here I cut about like that. If you've cut a little more angle you're going to be a little lower a little less a little straighter up and down. You want to try to avoid getting too low on the angle what happens there is the caulking just does not really adhere properly and it's just going to be kind of laying on there and then when you go and swipe it with your finger it's going to make a bit of a mess. If you do end up getting a little steeper it can just kind of spread it up the sides a little more it's not the worst thing in the world. So if you're going to err err on being a little bit steeper but just get a feel for that angle and once you get a sense of the angle use your orientation line and always keep it pointed the opposite direction that you're traveling and then when you're going around corners and stuff you can always just spin the tube you're going along baseboard like this you're coming down some casing you can spin it up like that yeah the orientation line comes in handy and then just get a feel for maintaining that same angle as you travel along it takes a little practice but it just it just gives you that consistent caulking that you're not going to have to spend a lot of time sometimes when you get right in the zone you don't even need to tool the caulking but most times I'll just take my wet rag put my pinky in there and then just give it a quick swipe just to smooth everything out and when it comes to the proper flow rate and application speed there's really no way that I can tell you exactly how to do that what I will say is when I'm just starting off I haven't caulked for a while I'm just getting back into it I keep it pretty light on the squeeze pressure and the speed a little bit slower just to get a bit of a feel for it as you get a little more comfortable you can grip it a little firmer and just get going a little faster but the one thing that I will say here and set in stone it's always better to do two or three swipes to kind of build up the the bead rather than one heavy fat layer that you're going to have to try to wipe off and clean up two or three swipes takes like three seconds putting down a fat bead and cleaning it off can be two or three minutes and it's once you get caulking smeared all over the place it just makes a disaster of everything so keep the pressure light at first the speed relatively slow so that you're just getting a feel for it build up some confidence and then get rolling and hey now that you are a caulking master why not learn how to hang doors I've got a great video for that right over here so let's move on to the last tip we're going to put everything together I forgot what I was trying to say boom goes the dynamite after this you are going to be a peru there's just hopefully I can cut something together that was brutal