Some of the better caulk guns have a metal pin riveted to them. That pin is for puncturing the seal on the tube of caulk.
Ah, got you. I just peel that off. No way I’d be dumb enough to forget that! And no way I’d put the caulk gun down on my nice new kitchen worktop having forgotten to slacken off the trigger. :smack:
I find that this is one of those things that simply requires practice. When you first do it you will get clumps of caulk followed by strings & perhaps spaces. Even if you smooth it out with you finger, it will likely look bad.
I have always thought that the electric guns would be a good idea (they were not around when I was doing it) since they would apply a constant pressure. However, I have never used one and I would not be surprised to find that an electric gun would do the same sucky job, only faster.
My experience with tasks like these is that by the time I got passably good, I was done.
What a coincidence, I’ve never done this either.
My friend never did even one better than that. He looked down into the tube/nozzle to see what was blocking things up about the time the membrane burst from all that pumping he did. And it was silicone caulk to boot.
Not that he did that mind you.
I’ve been feeling stupid about my mistake for a while now. This thread has made me feel almost competent.
What is it about you guys that you can’t even handle a little caulk without making a mess of it?
I just installed a new toilet a while back that I need to re-caulk around. The first time, I tried the wet-finger method but just made a big mess. Is there any way to make this tape trick work on a toilet (or other curved surface) or does this only work for straight line caulking? Maybe I’m better off just getting me one of those tools…
I don’t see why you couldn’t put some tape on the floor and some tape on the toilet. All you are doing is masking off the area AROUND the caulk seam to keep it free from caulk. You will inevitably get some caulk on the tape and when you pull the tape off the excess caulk will come too and viola! Tidy job.
Sounds like you’re using way too much caulk. It’s not molding, its a sealant, and you only need enough to fill the gap. If the use of tape is a big help, you used too much.
Whoa! Hold on, you should not be caulking your toilet to the floor!
With a correctly installed toilet, caulk is, in the least, unnecessary, you could potentially be causing way more damage than you believe you are preventing.
By sealing the area under your toilet you are preventing it from drying out if moisture were to penetrate the area causing rot, mold, bacteria to grow.
Secondly, you would be masking any indication that your toilet seal may be leaking.
And thereby eliminating your best defensive argument when confronted about your aim.
I’ll have you know I never handle a little caulk.
Well yes and no. I just installed a toilet and i had to use a spacer under it because the flange was too high. So with a porcelain toilet on a marble like spacer on a ceramic tile floor on a slab foundation I used sealant as a cushion so none of the stuff cracked when assembling it. I also used an extra large wax seal.
Mine has a built in tip cutter on the side. Just noticed it the other night. pretty slick.
i agree you shouldn’t caulk your toilet. when the wax seal fails you want to see water coming out around the base and replace the wax seal. if you caulk the base then you dam that leaking water hiding it from you, you then notice it when your toilet falls through your rotten floor (or you notice the leaking toilet water in the room below).
No, absolutely not, the proper procedure would be to reset the flange flush with the floor and installed the toilet properly. When your toilet wobbles (and it will) it will leak and most likely crack the flange off as well.
Secondly, sealant is sealant, not a cushion.
Finally, if your flange was too high, why did you use an extra large wax seal? Those are used when your flange is too low.
I find it somewhat unsettling that people will jury rig their toilets, considering the materials it handles.
Silicone works fine on a clean surface and it is what all the professional tilers use (it is common practice to seal all corners with silicone. Frog tape will not be much help over depressions like grout lines.
Another trick besides the wet finger is to dampen the surface first, this allows excess silicone to wipe off somewhat easier.
There are purpose made squeegees that work much better than a finger. I recommend picking up one of these when you buy the caulking.
Kwik Seal by Dap is an acrylic product made for sealing bath and shower rims that is easy to clean up with water. It takes a few hours to dry and is much softer than silicone (so a little more sensitive to mistakes). It comes in a much easier to use little tube and you can wipe it off completely if you screw up. Mapei makes a similar caulk colour matched to their grout.
Be careful of those powered pressure guns. READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!
I tried an air powered one the first time without going too deeply into the instruction manual and it turned out the air pressure was set way too high. Shot a solid stream of caulk at least ten feet.
Luckily I was outside at the time and the caulk eventually wore off the grass.
The flange was cemented in place and hard tile installed around it. To do it right would require destroying the tile floor and jack-hammering a rather large hole down to the gravel below the foundation and retrofitting the proper PVC pipe connection to the cast iron pipe. The owner didn’t want that done. There was no sign of leakage as the there is no place for it to go because it’s all sealed in cement. I used the marble spacer to create a flat surface and compensate for the high flange which is cemented in place. This made it slightly lower than optimal spacing so a larger seal was used.
As far as I can guess, the original owner of the house replaced the toilet with one of different spacing and instead of returning it for the correct one, cut out the cast iron flange and cemented an offset PVC flange along with a piece of PVC pipe in it’s place.