Spray paint is fun, but not cheap

No doubt that spraying is way more fun then a roller and/or brush. Oh sure, these have their place. You are not going to spray inside your living room with a room full of furniture. But when it comes to items you can pick up and move around, especially now that the weather is coming into a nice time of year (unless it never stops raining), you can take it outside and do a nice spray on the item you are making or just fixing up.

We are just talking about the paints, stains and finishes that come in a spray can. Not the compressor, hose and gun spray arrangement that professionals would be using. Even though I have a small compressor and gun kit, the trouble to set up and mix the proper thickness is quite a chore. Then comes the proper adjustment to the mix of air versus liquid. It does not take long for the fun to be wearing thin. Then finally you have to wonder if all this work is only worth the time and effort for only a couple pieces. Might be if there is a sufficient quantity of items to spray the same color, it may be worth it.

For instance. I have four cornhole boards to do. American flag colors. Two boards will be just like the Euclid Fire Department board shown above, except without the EFP medallion, just red, white and blue. And maybe stars all over it. Fifty of them. Might be nice! The other two will be the stars and stripes. Design was a minor issue. I first thought of doing the colors long ways; meaning the blue star field would be on the lower left as you played with the stripes going up and down. Debbee thought that would too much like the way our soldiers and sailors are brought home. So, we turned the flag to be on the width with a lot of space at the top around the hole. That will a nice place for a soft color that does not clash with the flag colors. Or, we'll see how the spirit moves me.

Because of the nice straight lines, this is a good time to spray. No doubt that masking off the lines would be real easy. And this would work for a roller or brush paint job, but spraying is much more fun. Besides, every cornhole I have done so far is all hand painted like the sets shown above. These are still hand painted, just hand sprayed. The stars in the flags blue field will be hand painted, and that is going to take some time to get that just right. But they will look good, real good!

Until the end of the month, spray cans are on sale at Pat Catans, so I decided to give them a try knowing I had this project coming up. Some new brand I had seen before, just never tried. So far, it seems to be working out well. What constitutes "working out well"? Not much odor, fast drying and good color. And color fast. Will they hold their color over time? That remains to be seen.

Newsflash! Discount Drug Mart has Painter's Choice spray cans for 2 for $3.99, and they are 12 ounce cans. The cans are Pat Catans are 9 ounces for $3.00. Where's my receipt? Something is going back!

I am using regular masking tape and newspaper to block out areas I am not spraying. Works very well. Especially for spraying, because using a brush or roller puts a lot of paint on the wood and it will seep under the tape just like they show on television. Which makes for a lot of "touch up" later with an artists' brush. And besides that, I cannot justify the cost of that newest green tape to prevent this seepage, because I use a lot of tape. Take a look at the three examples at the top of this page and you will get the idea of the amount of tape used. Any place there is a change in color consitutes taping to prevent bleeding into the other color. Those would eventually get to a point where no tape is used, but not until the final details need to be done. Then once more its time for an artists' brush and put your nose in real close to get best results.

Besides, if you sand the boards good in the beginning before priming, then sand again after priming, then press the tape on really good, the seepage will be very minimal. And its just the nature of the wood, being plywood with all the nooks and crannies, it is bound to happen.

And there's just no getting around it. At some point, a quart can will have to opened and a brush will be used to correct a mistake.

But the end result is always worth it. Don't you think so?