Under the skin

By Grace Garwood
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It’s often pointed out to us by our customers and visiting reps that we seem to have “very interesting chats” in our shops, among ourselves and with our customers and suppliers. The subjects range from work, to football, to life in general and can get quite philosophical!

Well, one of these recent chats in our Buckhurst Hill shop, centred on train sets! 

I’ve long been a fan of these, as well as Airfix models and a very early memory was a birthday gift to my brother of Hornby’s “The Mallard” train set. 

I still think it’s the most beautiful man made object I’ve ever seen and the colour has long been a favourite of mine too. I’ve often wondered where my interest in colour came from…I think it’s probably that! 

Well, during our discussion, I was made aware of the massive cost of train sets, the bits that go with them and the maintenance of them too! The one thing I remember more than most was painting models…a tiny brush, a steady hand (while holding my breath) and a massive sense of achievement when it came out well. 

Is this where my interest in painting and decorating came from too? 

Probably, now I come to think of it! 

So, as usual, after my chat, I went home and started researching train sets! In particular, The Mallard. 

I won’t be buying one in the near future, to build a good one costs what you’d pay for a small car! 

But, I did, being me, start looking at the little paint pots. And I worked out that they’d cost £1067.43 for 5 litres!!! So, one thing led to another and the subject of MEKO, the anti skinning agent arose. 

It’s a major ingredient in these little paint pots. It’s been banned all over Europe, it should have been here too but as Brexit is now in full swing the March 2022 deadline was postponed.

Our company made a concerted effort to remove all MEKO paints from sale in the past 2 or 3 years and we were ready long before the postponed deadline arrived.  

If you have any in your shed that may contain it (mostly oil based paints from 4 years ago or more) please consider recycling it as opposed to using it. 

Now we know that it’s not good for you, it’s better safe than sorry! 

And now, back to train sets. 

Christmas is coming and if any of you fancy treating an old shopkeeper to a little gift…😂

Be well everyone!

Pat.

Seen a ghost?

By Pat
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Once upon a time, the decorating world was dominated by ghostly looking apparitions…decorators covered in white filler dust!

Every home would need a proper vacuum cleaning session once the decorators had finished, the cloud of dust would travel to every room, not just the one being decorated!

Easyfill, Tetrion, Polyfilla, Toupret…it didn’t matter what filler was used, the fallout remained the same.

What about wet & dry? Well, that’s good on a nice door or piece of furniture but on a ceiling? Not a chance. What about zip up door covers? Excellent! But as soon as you step through the door into another room, the dust on you is coming with!

The wonderful (but now quite old fashioned) pole sander seemed like the tool of the year but the ability to cover us all in dust to breathe in was increased massively.

And that’s something we never really talked about at the time.

What were we breathing in?

Not just filler dust but in most cases old paint, maybe mould from the surface, dirt, atmospheric pollution…

Health scare anyone?

So, what to do…?

Enter the dustless sanding revolution!

Once upon a time, many of us had the great idea of hooking our electric sander extractor hose up to faithful old Henry! That reduced the dust cloud enormously and also, as an added bonus it reduced the time taken later on hoovering and dusting down.

But, it wasn’t totally dust proof.

So the stage was set for the big boys to come and play.

Sanders and extractors such as Mirka’s DEROS (direct electric random orbital sander) coupled to the extractors 1230L (domestic approved) or 1230M (Industrial Site Approved) 

Auto filter cleaning (AFC) for the 225mm sander Leros 

(Long Electric Random Orbital Sander) adds the convenience of a pole sander and a filter that cleans itself saving valuable time.

So, not only are your customers delighted with a clean and dust free environment while having the place decorated, you save hours a week in cleaning up time and the most important benefit, that to your health, add up to the ultimate industry no brainier!

The investment you make now will pay you back until you retire…and long after too!

So you’ll be much further away from being that ghost!

That’s Sandy!

Pop in to see our range of options and deals at both our Buckhurst Hill and Harlow shops!

And literally, be well!

Pat.

Papering over the cracks.

By Pat
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Lining paper…
What a boring subject for this blog!
Well, when I first joined the company, lining paper was as much in demand, it seemed, as white Matt!
We stocked thousands of rolls… all the grades too!
480, 600, 800 and 1000!
And that was it!
There was no 1200, 1400, 1700 or 2000.
Fibreliner? What? No, we had cotton backed lining to paper over the cracks.
Yes, paper with a criss cross scrim of cotton thread on the back!
Cross lining! That was hard work!
And Rex paste was the order of the day for the stickers.
And size: hot water size ( what an unbelievable stink! ) or cold water size.
And only 2 tub pastes: green top or red top.
Or Solvite.
Strong enough to hang a man over a shark infested pool with…?
Anyway, 480, 600, 800 cotton backed…all now gone…
Pastes? We have literally dozens of makes always in stock.
Size? BSE got rid of hot size in the 1990’s and it never came back!
So here we are all those years later and lining paper is still providing us with the proverbial silk purse to paint or paper on to.
I recently had a customer point out that a wallpaper he had to hang had see through parts in its design, the trick was to line the wall and then paint in the colour you wanted visible through this part…
And that got me thinking.
When I was young, (dark ages) one of the biggest reasons for the use of lining paper was as a base for specialist effects such as rag rolling or sponging.
When we were stripping out our Buckhurst Hill showroom to refurbish it, pulling down the wallpaper revealed a lovely rag rolled wall…all done on 800 lining by my old mate Gary Knight.
He worked here 30 years ago and taught me a lot about the trade.
We lost Gary a few weeks ago but it’s nice to know what what he did had lasted so long.
So I think my next project is going to be a recreation of that wall.
1000 lining, eggshell, scumble glaze, some colorant and a rag.
And certainty that no one else will ever have exactly what I make of it, only me.
I’ll post the finished job here later!

Happy decorating folks!

Be well.

Pat.