The Secrets to Great Exterior Caulking(Windows, Doors, Trims)!

I'm going to show you how to get your exterior caulking looking like this rather than this the biggest mistake people make with exterior caulking is getting their finger in there and just getting that bead Way Too Thin and spread out if you do that it's going to crack and peel away over time so let me show you how to get professional looking beads here when it comes to getting the right exterior caulking to use that can be a difficult choice there's hundreds of different products out there I'll make it pretty simple here there's two products that I always stick to that is the np1 master seal polyurethane sealant and Big Stretch which is a latex water base this is much easier to work with water cleanup this is mineral spirits and rubbing alcohol this is a lot more durable and will last a lot longer than this if you need an easy product to work with this is a good product I recommend it over dynaflex 230 which is very similar this is better for inside this is better for outside this is more stretchy and flexible so if I have to I will use this most the time I use the np1 these products here are also very popular the thing that I don't like about them is all of them say you're not supposed to Tool them which means you've got to just apply them perfectly don't touch them I don't know if you've ever tried caulking but that never really happens I even contacted this company and yeah they recommend no tooling whatsoever let's get to the application there's a few things that you need to have in place before you get rolling number one is going to be paper towel this is going to be messy you want to keep the tip clean your hands clean everything clean paper towel is your best friend here you can use Rags for sure but I just like to rip off individual slices here and just get a bunch in your pocket and you're ready to reload at a moment's notice next thing you'll need is a utility knife to cut the tip when we're talking tips here you want to have a bit bigger of a tip I like about 3 16 of an inch that's going to give you a good sized bead to cut that I'll just hold the gun at about 15 degrees and then cut straight down then I'll take a black marker just make a line along the furthest point of the tip that's going to help you so much to keep the gun orientated in the right way whatever Direction you're heading just point that line away from you this is going to solve a lot of your problems if you get that tip sideways or upside down you're going to make a huge mess once you've got that tip cut you also need to puncture the seal now most guns do come with these little puncture sticks on there jab that in there make sure you jab it in enough times that you're really going to break that foil apart now in terms of a caulking gun an exterior gun is going to be a lot nicer with np1 Master seal if you're using the Big Stretch and again will work because this stuff does not have a lot of viscosity and it's easy to squeeze out this stuff here is pretty thick the difference between an interior gun and an exterior gun is just the thrust ratio this is 18 to 1 10 to 1. what that means is you're not going to squeeze out as much material with this but it's going to be a lot easier on the old carpet tunnel forearm here so this is a beautiful gun I'll link this one in the description and then you also need a tooling agent the six inch jumbo popsicle sticks is the best one that you can do you can make your own out of wood of course but these you can buy these off Amazon as well or any craft store is going to sell these things the thing here it has the perfect round profile it's wide enough that you're not going to get a lot of squeeze out the side then I also like to cut a nice 90 degree on one of the ends here that is going to be the perfect tool for any kind of side spillage cleanup so let's get to the application here you want to hold your gun approximately at the angle that you cut if you're going to air get it a little more on the nose a little kind of more 90 degrees if you hold the thing too on too much of an angle it's not going to stick the caulking to the materials here thank you so you can see I put it on a little bit less here you can always just take the gun the nice thing here with the dripless gun is it keeps it fairly clean if you get a little bit of build up there just wipe it off go over the thin spot you want to have enough material on for the tooling now you've got that on there doesn't look great so if you were using the quad here you're kind of screwed because you can't tool it that was smooth so this dry tooling technique is also going to work perfectly well for the Big Stretch this is kind of the secret key here is when you're just getting rolling to find out kind of the best angle to hold this thing at pull it towards yourself and then you're going to be able to see how much material you're picking up you want to find that sweet spot where you're getting kind of the perfect pickup and that's going to be just so it's barely picking up any material at all yet still getting a nice profile on both the edges it's a little bit of trial and error here and it depends on how much material you've laid down in the first place the nice thing about this mp1 is you can go over it three four five times and it's not going to skin up you're going to paint this stuff you do have to let it sit for at least one day because it does take quite a while to set up so let me demonstrate the tooling process here so start off on a bit of an angle get a look at how much material you're picking up if you're picking up too much tip the angle down a bit if you're not picking up any get a little flatter and just ride it right along you can see but that's about how much material I have I'll clean it off and the paper towel and if we're looking at the bead it's looking actually really nice all the way along I did end up getting a little too heavy on the material so I will need to just clean that off with the straight edge and just ride that along here that is the Perfect Beat of caulking if you're going to be doing this exterior caulking job and you have some old existing caulking that is cracked it's an absolute mess you have to remove it if you want to know the easiest way to get that job done check out this video right over here jumbo popsicle I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore just going on and on and on that's just going to keep you health that's just gonna what the what boom

Channel: The Funny Carpenter

Views: 167,487

Keywords: exterior caulking, np1, master seal, the funny carpenter, funny carpenter, how to caulking outside, caulking windows, sealing doors, caulking tips

Id: lS0wiWLFzMw

Length: 6min 51sec (411 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023