Painter's tape sticking to new caulk

[trader_4]

I just finished some outside painting and am having a problem with
painter's tape that is sticking to new caulking around windows. It's
latex type caulk that was applied a couple weeks ago. Then painter's
tape was applied recently over it to mask off the windows. The caulk,
while cured enough for painting, etc, is apparently not cured enough
to keep it from bonding to the tape. I spotted this problem and even
switched to the lowest adhesion painter's tape for delicate surfaces.
Even so, after one to two days, it's sticking to the caulk underneath
and when you go to pull it off, it starts lifting the nice smooth caulk
job up with it. Doesn't seem to actually pull the caulk out of a gap,
but it does rough up what's there, make it stringy, a mess, etc.

Any ideas on how to get it off? I tried using a hair dryer, no effect.
I tried removing it on mornings when it was cold, no effect. I tried
brushing on some mineral spirits, that might have helped a little.
I even bought some Mossbacker's super special stuff that was highly
rated for removing tape, gum, etc. No effect. I think part of the
problem is that the tape now has paint over top of it too, so it's
harder for anything to penetrate. I was thinking of trying either
multiple coats of mineral spirits over a couple days or possibly
acetone? Of course one main concern is that I also don't want to
damage the new paint. The tape is just on the metal window frame,
but still some small amount of anything I use is going to get to the
very edge of the paint.

I would think this would be a common problem, caulking then taping,
painting is done a lot. But can't find anything about it. I guess
one way pro painters probably avoid it is by putting up two coats
of paint, same day, then removing the tape right away. But being
DIY, weather, etc, I've typically had at least 2 days between
putting it on and taking it off.

Any ideas?

[RobertMacy]

Remove within 24 hours of taping. AND keep out of sun!

I found 6 year old paint came off using that blue painter's tape. I had a
shelf board to paint, so lenaed it up against a blank wall, placced about
3 inches wide of tape to prevent painting the wall, only to find.. that
the paint that got onto the tape evidently diffused right through
softening the fairly old [at least should be cured in 6 years!] When I
pulled the tapeoff, sure enough paint came off in the pattern of the paint
on top the tape! I mean pulled off, too.

[Oren]

Dang if I know. Caulk may be acrylic latex, temps are to cold to cure,
etc..?

For giggles, I'd try oils. Swab a spot with peanut butter, vegetable,
olive oil - those will release glue adhesive. Allow to soak the tape.

You mentioned Acetone, by chance KEEP it off any vinyl windows /trims.

[trader_4]

I think the cooler temps definitely slow down the curing, but I would
still think it would be cured enough not to stick after 2 weeks. Also,
caulk is supposed to stay flexible, stretchable, etc to some extent, so
I guess there are somewhat conflicting goals there. The caulk is definitely
acrylic latex and the paint is latex too.

I do think the weather played a big indirect role. If I had done this in May,
I'd have more likely been able to give it two coats the same day or by the next
day, lessening the time the tape was on. As it was, it typically was on for
several days minimum. From what I can gather, it doesn't stick at all the
first day. But by day two or three, it's well stuck on and after that, I'm
not sure that it gets much worse. I'm also thinking that before paint hits
the tape, it may be able to stay on longer and that once the paint gets on it,
then it sticks a lot more, but not sure. On the other hand, in May with
higher temps, maybe the tape sticks even worse. I'm sure getting direct
summer sun on it would be worse than the typical days here now.

>
> For giggles, I'd try oils. Swab a spot with peanut butter, vegetable,
> olive oil - those will release glue adhesive. Allow to soak the tape.
>
> You mentioned Acetone, by chance KEEP it off any vinyl windows /trims.

Thanks, that's an idea worth trying. As I reported, I think mineral spirits,
which is somewhat oily, might have helped, but I'm not sure. Maybe I'll
try PB Blaster on a spot and see what it does. That's oily and very
penetrating too.

I suppose another possibility would be something even more aggressive
that could damage the new paint, but use a shield so that it only gets
on the tape that's on the metal window frame, and keep it off the new
paint at the siding where it meets the frame. Jeez. First I was using
tape to shield the window from the paint. Now I'm thinking about using
a shield to keep something else off the new paint, but on the window frame....

[nestork]

I think the bottom line here is that you put the tape over the caulk
before it was dry enough.

Acrylic latex caulks don't have a chemical curing process like
polyurethane caulks or oil based paints. Instead, they undergo a
physical transformation as they "dry", exactly like acrylic latex paints
do as they "dry".

I'll explain the physical transformation that occurs in latex paints,
and exactly the same thing happens in acrylic caulks, but with different
solvents and different resins:

A latex paint consists of a slurry of solids suspended in a liquid.

The solids consist of:
1. Hard transparent and colourless plastic resins made of one of two
kinds of plastic
2. coarse solids called "extender pigments" that cause the paint to dry
to a rougher finish. Were it not for extender pigments, all paints
would dry to a high gloss finish.
e. fine solid particles called "coloured pigments" that give the paint
it's colour.

The liquid those solids are suspended in consists of:
A. water, and
B. a low volatility water soluble solvent called a "coalescing agent" or
"coalescing solvent". Probably the most commonly used coalescing
solvent is a product called "Texanol" made by the Eastman Chemical
Company.

http://www.eastman.com/literature_center/m/m329.pdf

C. glycerine, which is added with the colourants called for in the tint
formula when the paint is tinted at the point of sale.

When the paint is applied to a wall or ceiling, the first thing that
happens is the water starts to evaporate. As the water evaporates, each
of the hard spherical plastic resins finds itself in a bath of
coalescing solvent at steadily increasing concentration. The coalescing
solvent gets absorbed into the hard clear spherical plastic resins
causing them to become very soft and sticky.

The forces of surface tension and capillary pressure which cause tiny
droplets of water to coalesce into large heavy rain drops then take over
to cause each soft sticky plastic resin to stick to and pull on each of
it's neighbors. As that happens, there is a rapid reduction in the
number of liquid/plastic interfaces which reflect and refract light to
produce the colour white in an observers eyes, and the paint film
darkens slightly as a result.

In proper film formation, all of the soft sticky plastic resins pull on
each other with sufficient force to eliminate the phase boundaries
around each resin, and the result is a solid soft sticky film of clear
plastic with the extender and coloured pigments suspended in it very
much like raisins in raisin bread.

Then, over the next 12 to 48 hours, the coalescing solvent evaporates
from the paint film filling the room with that "freshly painted smell".
You can create that freshly painted smell in any room simply by using a
spray bottle to mist some Texanol into the air.

As the coalescing solvent evaporates from the paint film, the plastic
hardens up again to the same hardness the plastic resins originally were
in the liquid paint before the can was opened. Only, instead of being
microscopically small spheres of plastic, they now consists of a
continuous solid film of plastic with pigments suspended inside it.

The above explains why latex paints darken as they dry. Initially,
there is reflection and refraction of light at every plastic/liquid
interface, and so latex paint is white for the same reason that clowds
and snow is white. Your eye sees all the different colours of refracted
and reflected light coming from everywhere in the paint film as the
colour "white". As the plastic resins coalesce into a solid film,
there is a rapid reduction in the amount of reflection and refraction of
light within the paint film, and the paint darkens in very much the same
way that snow loses it's white colour as it melts to form water.

Also, over tinting the paint with too much colourant can ruin latex
paints. The reason for this is that the coalescence process requires
that the concentration of coalescing solvent in the plastic resins
become high enough to fully soften the resins so that they deform easily
to form a solid continuous film with no voids in it. If there was too
much glycerine added when tinting the paint, that will dilute the
concentration of coalescing solvent in the wet paint film after the
water evaporates. The concentration of coalescing solvents might not be
high enough to soften the plastic resins sufficiently that they deform
easily enough to form a solid continuous film.

And finally, painting with a latex paint in cold temperatures can be
problematic because every plastic gets harder when it's cold, and the
cold temperature can make the clear plastic resins too hard to soften
sufficiently from the absorbtion of coalescing solvents alone. That's
why you're not supposed to paint when the outdoor temperature will fall
below 50 deg. F at night.

What very well may have happened is that by pushing the tape on the "dry
to the touch" caulk, you prevented the remaining coalescing solvent in
the caulk from evaporating normally from the caulk. The result would be
that the plastic resins at the surface of the caulk would have turned
softer and stickier as they absorbed coalescing solvent for a second
time. If you pushed the painter's tape onto those sticky resins, they
would have stuck to the adhesive on the tape, and your now pulling that
tape off is taking chunks of acrylic caulk with it.

I don't see any way around this problem. The resins are sticking to the
tape adhesive just as they would wood or glass. I'd say your best bet
it to just pull the tape off, and paint over the caulk so that it sheds
water easily. I'm concerned that if you leave the caulk rough, then
water will collect on it and mold will start growing in those collection
points. Better to paint over the caulk so that the water drains off the
paint surface after a rain.

Next time, allow more time for the caulk to dry before applying the
painter's masking tape.




--
nestork

[trader_4]

That the caulk was not fully cured was my first thought too. But as I
said before, in some cases the caulk had two weeks+ to cure, including
days that were 60s, even 70s. And I don't see any difference in how the
tape then stuck to those caulked spots versus how it stuck to caulked
spots that had ~3 days to cure. I still think that you're right, if the caulk
was on there for a year, then the tape probably wouldn't stick. But I
would think painters would be having this problem all the time, because
I doubt they caulk, then wait more than a few days. I have seen painters
say it's best
to remove the tape as soon as the paint is dry to the touch, but they
didn't go into anything beyond that. I was thinking that they were just
referring to the fact that with any tape, if you leave it on too long,
especially in the hot sun, etc, then it can be difficult to get off. But
I wasn't prepared for this bonding to the new caulk thing in just one or two
days problem.

[Oren]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:34:21 -0800 (PST), trader_4
<tra...@optonline.net> wrote:

>That the caulk was not fully cured was my first thought too. But as I
>said before, in some cases the caulk had two weeks+ to cure, including
>days that were 60s, even 70s. And I don't see any difference in how the
>tape then stuck to those caulked spots versus how it stuck to caulked
>spots that had ~3 days to cure. I still think that you're right, if the caulk
>was on there for a year, then the tape probably wouldn't stick. But I
>would think painters would be having this problem all the time, because
>I doubt they caulk, then wait more than a few days. I have seen painters
>say it's best
>to remove the tape as soon as the paint is dry to the touch, but they
>didn't go into anything beyond that. I was thinking that they were just
>referring to the fact that with any tape, if you leave it on too long,
>especially in the hot sun, etc, then it can be difficult to get off. But
>I wasn't prepared for this bonding to the new caulk thing in just one or two
>days problem.

How old was this caulk? I've been told that caulk can go bad, or
there may be a bad "Lot" so it's better to use a new tube.

[trader_4]

It was all less than a year old, some of it purchased right before use.
Didn't see any difference between them. It was DAP acrylic with silicone,
the 35 year stuff. IDK if anything else would have been better. That
type appears to be the best compromise for something that is paintable,
water cleanup, reasonable life, etc.

[Oren]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2014 04:54:56 +0100, nestork
<nestork...@diybanter.com> wrote:

>Next time, allow more time for the caulk to dry before applying the
>painter's masking tape.

Next time, learn to paint without masking tape. Golly gee.

[trader_4]

I was spraying and back-brushing. It's a lot faster. Also, it's rough
cedar siding. Cutting in with that as opposed to taping, is a lot harder
than if it's some siding material. With the rough surface you have to
work the brush around, make several passes, and doing that next to a window
would take more time than taping. And I'm doing two coats. You only have
to tape once.

[ChairMan]

In news:d2495264-5c19-4677...@googlegroups.com,
trader_4 <tra...@optonline.net> belched:

Try some naptha, I also use WD-40 to remove spray adhesive from my hands, so
you might even try some of it or just kerosene

[LHo...@charter.net]

[LHo...@charter.net]

On Wednesday, November 26, 2014 at 11:39:54 AM UTC-5, trader_4 wrote:

I just had the same thing happen, froggie painters tape, caulk 2 weeks old, 58 degrees, rough sawn ceder, latex paint, tried to take the tape off as soon as i finished a window area (?twenty minutes), pulled out big pieces of caulk even from the joint. Did anyone try treating the caulk first with veg oil?

[trader_4]

IDK how you treat caulk around a window with oil and not have it interfere
with applying the paint. How do you keep the oil only on the caulk, without
it being on the adjacent wood? And how will tape then stick to it at all?

[TDiaz]

Same problem. New windows with cedar wrap. Yellow froggers tape. Caulk had about 2 to dry before I taped and painted. Not pulling off caulk. Will probably just have to recalk. I don't see any other way to fix it.

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