Painters and decorators need to master a wide variety of skills in order to complete jobs well. There is a well-established standard arsenal of tools and materials used by painters and decorators all around the world. Here is a quick guide to some of these essential items and their uses.
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Sandpaper
Before redecorating a room, decorators usually need to get rid of old paint or wallpaper. There are 4 main methods for removing old paint: scraping, stripping, heating and sanding. Usually some combination of all 4 methods needs to be implemented in order to create a clean canvas for redecoration. Decorators need to pack several kinds of sandpaper with them on jobs.
Dust Masks
Sanding, scraping heating and stripping all create lots of dust. Old paint and wallpaper particles can get airborne when the materials are broken down. A good dust mask, like the ones sold by Tradefix Direct, should prevent too many particles from entering your lungs during the teardown phase. It is also a wise idea to wear a mask during painting. A great deal of paint is solvent based, which means efforts should be made to avoid breathing in fumes.
Ladders
You can’t decorate a room if you are unable to reach its corners! Decorators typically bring a stepladder to jobs and have access to longer extendable ladders for jobs in rooms with especially high ceilings. Ladder safety is essential. Decorators always need to make sure that their ladder is firmly rooted on the ground and avoid working on ladders for long periods.
Paint Trays
The easiest way to get an even coat when using a roller is to pick paint up from a paint tray. These simple trays have shallow wells that help a roller soak up paint.
Brushes And Rollers
Painters and decorators need to own a large variety of paintbrushes and rollers. The kind of brush or roller used really depends on the nature of the individual area that needs to be painted. Skilled decorators are adept at using small brushed to complete detail work on bannisters and other wooden furnishings.
Wallpaper Scrapers
Sometimes it takes a little elbow grease to remove old wallpaper. On such occasions, decorators usually turn to their trusty wallpaper scrapers: sharp, broad blades that can be scraped along a wall to remove material.
Wallpaper Pasting Table
Before wallpaper is put up it needs to be covered in a layer of adhesive paste. This can prove incredibly fiddly, as wallpaper strips tend to be pretty long. A cheap and cheerful wallpaper pasting table makes the task a great deal easier. Wallpaper pasting tables are long, usually wooden workbenches that fold up for easy transportation.
Filler And Filler Knives
Preparation is key in painting and decorating. Small cracks and holes need to be filled in before painting or wallpapering in order to create a smooth finish. This is usually achieved with polyethene filler and a filler knife. Filling in cracks smoothly is something of an art.
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