Flawless Interior Trim Prep & Paint | Pro Tips for Airless Sprayer Finish (New Construction)

[Music] So, this is uh the start of, you know, doing new construction. I've got a door. So, we typically start with uh removing all of our doors and begin the spackling, uh sanding, bondo, sand, caulk, prime, inspect with bondo again, uh fill, sand, and then shoot two coats of trim. This is what it looks like. Uh we begin taking off, you know, the hinges and stuff. So, these are hinges. We don't want to get anything on them. Here's my bucket of hinges right here. Got my hinges. Uh, so they're not going to get dirty. I'm going to eventually take those out where they won't get overspray. They won't get full of dust on them. We keep our screws, you know, separated. Here's all the screws from the doors we've been uh taking off right here. This is a typical door jam. It's not been cocked. It's not been spackled. Now, there's, you know, multiple ways you can do this when you uh get this door off. Now, you know, everybody kind of has their own systems and processes. Once we get this door off, there's going to be some schools of thought that says, "Hey, you should prime before you caulk and spackle." Um, we don't do that. The caulking that we use bonds to bare wood. The spackling bonds to bare wood, so it's not an issue. We just kind of have what works for us. And and we do the priming after uh spackle um after bondo and after caulking. So, you know, if you once again, if you're using inexpensive, you know, fillers, uh, sealants and stuff like that, maybe priming could be something beneficial to do before. But if you do prime first and then put all this Bondo and everything on it, you're going to have to prime again to go over that Bondo to be able to inspect for imperfections after that. So, it's really like I think, you know, in the end, you're going to be doing the same amount of processes probably. I just know, you know, what's worked for us over the years. That's super fast and efficient. So, we're going to begin just removing, you know, the doors. So, again, keep hinges hinge screws separate from any other type of screws. These are interior holocore doors. They're super light. Try to be careful when removing screws, you know, not to scratch your hinges. These are bronze hinges and you can scratch them. you know, if your drill slips and stuff, don't just toss them in the bucket either because you can scratch them. And I typically get to the point where I've got, you know, one screw left in a door and I'll take that screw off last, leave one screw up top, take the ones off down bottom. Door is going to tilt forward. Just be careful. You know, one method also is you can take off the door jamb sides and leave the hinges on the door. Get the door off and then begin removing, you know, all the hinges from the doors. That's kind of, you know, once again, another one of those things, you know, what works for you. Now, once I get this last door, I'm going to get this last screw. Hold on to the door so it doesn't fall into you. Get that screw off. Now, I got the door. Just going to lean it up right here. Last screw. So, door is off. Talked a little bit about labeling things. Definitely want to label this door. This is the up hinge. This is the uphing. We're going to label that. I haven't been removing all these doors downstairs. Um, Noah's been removing them. So, I'm not sure his labeling system. I'm going to go look see what he's got going on here labeling wise. He's got D for down. He's got five and he's got B. So that's door number five. Probably starting from the front entryway, working our way through here. B is probably for bedroom or bath. That's probably the last door. So I think I could be confident saying this is D for downstairs. Probably four. And then B would be that this this is the matching hinge over here. I'm going to write D. We're down 4 B. Now, just to make sure, I'm going to walk over here to this door and see if that corresponds. Well, we got D5, so that's downstairs five. Again, I'm not sure, but I probably want to speak to the guy doing the labeling system and try to get it to to match up correctly. This is the last door in the house. So, I can even just say what if what if just so happens that um he had a D4 be somewhere else. Well, I'll just put an X. So, now we just know the two X's will match up. So, it's pretty simple. Just come up with some type of, you know, system. This is the very last door jam of the house. So, I'll show you the spackling process. So, I'm going to spackle this door jam and kind of give you some tips spackling it. So, now, you know, I inspected the door jam. There was a nail sticking out. You want to be checking any other nails sticking out, not set. You want to make sure you have your nails set. And then also, you know, the carpenters didn't do a very good job. And there's a lot of volcanoes. Definitely be able to um scrape them off. These carpenters, you know, throughout this house, uh there wasn't an issue at all with um the nail heads causing volcanoes. So, we haven't had to really scrape anything, but this is always with me, the Lind by scraper. You know, just in case that's an issue. Now, I'm going to begin um you patching everything. And the first thing we do is we patch with spackle. And I don't like to have a ton of spackle, you know, on my knife because, you know, it will dry out. Now, spackling, we're just going to I usually kind of hit it a couple times. You want to leave kind of a little small mound on there. You want to have something to sand. I don't want to do what I call like scraping it completely tight like that cuz it is going to dry and shrink a little bit. So, we want just to leave a little bit of mound. Not a whole lot of pressure, but just a little bit of pressure. And I would say it's really good to have kind of a system and a process to doing this. If you kind of just like bounce all around, you're bound and determined to you'll like miss something. So you'll the system could be just the face you'll left to right then and coming back the inside right to left and then the other base left to right just kind of come up with some system leave a little bit behind. Also I like to have you pretty wet spackle like new spackle. If you're using spackle that's pretty dried out. it's really difficult to work with and um and it just kind of makes it a little bit frustrating for you. So, I always keep the lid on the spackle. Might have shown you that before, but if you if you just kind of set the lid aside, your spackle is going to start drying out on top and then you're going to be working with dried spackle, which is kind of a pain in the neck, and I hate doing that. So, and you know, if you leave, I would say too big of a mound of spackle on there, then you're just going to have to do a lot of sanding. So, there's kind of like just kind of like a little fine line, you know, from, you know, what's too much, what's not enough. Um, I'd say just not enough is actually just scraping it tight completely off like that. The spackle sands, you know, fairly easily. Yo, it's um Crawford's interior exterior spackle. You can see and I'll give you a closeup look of what it looks like up close to how much spackle you need. So, I'm kind of like not sticking with my system cuz I'm like kind of talking here, but kind of come up with a system like I say, right to left, left to right. If you miss anything, you end up catching it after you prime, when you inspect, or when you bondo. So, don't worry if you miss something initially. So, I've worked there's pins and all in the stop. There's little pins on there. Little tiny pins. So, we're filling all the pins. So, I've worked up down that side. Now, I'll work the other side. You don't have to do any cracks. You're just doing holes. All the cracks are going to be filled with caulking. There's a big hole there. So, I kind of put a little bit bigger pile over that big hole. So, I've worked my way around the door jamb by having a system by working up one side and down the other. You're going to be probably bending over less. Uh, so you're kind of like we're trying to work smarter, you know, and more efficiently. The whole idea is to get the job done quick and efficiently so you're making money. The spackle dries fairly fast. probably in 45 minutes you you'll be able to spackle but or you'll be able to sand but a lot of that is uh dependent on temperature humidity. What the thing you don't want to do is start sanding your spackle or your bondo too soon cuz you'll ruin your abrasive. You'll get the spack or the bondo loaded up in the abrasive and you can't get it out once we once it's what we call loaded and so it's ruined. So, door jambs spackled. I would move along to next door jamb, begin, you know, spackling the next one. I'll end up, you know, sanding this. I'll bondo it and then sand it and then we'll caulk it. But one thing I don't what I don't want to do is coaul now. And because we could end up, you know, ruining our caulking. If we caulk first, we could ruin our caulking. The coaulking takes a lot longer to dry than the bondo or spackle. So, we coaul last. So, baseboards, everything. I'm going to begin working around the house. So, this is what it looks like. We'll give you a close-up look of how much spackle is is enough and not too not too much. All right. So, I'm going to get ready to start uh spackling or not spackling, but sanding the spackle. So, spackle's dried. I'm going to sand the spackle flat. I want to get rid of all the spackle except where the holes are. And then we're going to bondo over that. So this is kind of the next step of the process. This is what it looks like. [Music] I got the spackle sanded. You can see how fast it actually goes with a power sander. So, I'll just um kind of just let you know like back my early days doing new construction uh for years and years and years, all the sanding we did was all by hand. And some painters still do it. We just have two sanding blocks and literally just sand all this stuff, the spackle, bondo, everything by hand. And it's one of the reasons why I came to really hate new construction. Nowadays, uh, we've got this tool that makes it probably about 10 times faster. So, you don't have to invest in a tool like that, but it'll pay off on your first job that you actually um, use it on. So, not having to breathe dust all the time. It's hooked to a hepac also. So, I don't have to sit there and breathe sanding dust all day long. We would actually hand sand with blocks, everything. And by the time you were done, at the end of the day, you were just covered with dust. Another thing, having a tool. I noticed when I was sanding, one of the nail heads was exposed a little bit. That will actually damage your abrasive. It'll tear it. So, you definitely want to set those in. So, I just set that nail in. You know, hopefully it didn't. Um, it was barely showing, so it didn't tear my abrasive. So, that one there was that hole right there. And I actually when I was handing notice I missed the hole right there. So, I'm going to skim those tight. And then we're going to begin uh doing the Bondo. Okay. Now, the Bondo is kind of like the same as the spacko. Put on tight. I'm just going to leave a little bit. The idea is to leave a little bit behind. So, you have something to sand and sand it flat. But you don't want a ton left behind cuz then it means you just have to sand more. So there's kind of once again like a fine line to how much to put down and how much to you remove. So it kind of looks just like this. If you see any nicks and dings also dents sometimes the finger joints right there. Usually they sand out but sometimes they don't. You can go over your finger joints with my inspection light. I'll end up seeing those possibly and I'll catch them on the first go round with the inspection light. Once again, this is probably getting a system, you know, of you know where you're going so you don't miss anything. You know, top to bottom, right to left. Don't have too much bond. Don't put too much on your um whatever you're using to hold the Bondo on. I'm using this plastic spreader. Don't put too much on there cuz it's just going to dry out really fast. So, I've got the door jamb done. You're going to want to do your faces anywhere where there's where there was a nail head that you sanded. Bondo is a lot stronger than the spackle. A lot harder. A lot finer. So definitely takes a little more time. The spackle sanding goes really fast. [Music] Some guys don't bondo their baseboards cuz they're down low. Painters theories is you can't see it. So they don't bondo it because it's not at eye level at a place where you can see it. I mean, it's not that much more work. So, I I typically bondo my baseboards. Also, as I start to run out, usually wipe it clean, scrape it clean, start fresh. All the stuff on the floor is going to dry out and vacuum up. So, I'm not worried about it. Put a little bit more. Don't need much more. The door jam is almost done. And then we'll wait for our Bondo to dry. We'll sand our Bondo and then we will begin caulking. So now I'm I've got the Bondo done on here. It's got plenty of time to dry. Once again, don't sand it too early or you're going to clog up and uh you'll load your abrasive and ruin your abrasive. So it's got plenty of time to dry. Now we're just sanding it. I want to sand it, you know, to the um point where I can just see what, you know, the Bondo's filled. If you leave too much, you're actually going to see the edges and the ridges of the Bondo. So, I'm using, you know, my once again, my 3x4 sander. It's hooked to the vacuum, so I'm not breathing Bondo dust. It's hooked to a HEPAC and makes sanding simple and fast and easy. [Music] some cocking. you know, this door jam just and I'm going to give you a little tip. When this is MDF, which you know, when you spray it with, you know, your paint, especially a water-based product, it swells up, kind of gets rough like sandpaper. Um, you could prime it, you'll brush it, and it's kind of like a pain in the neck to deal with. You know, that's the the carpenters, that's just how they leave it. A good little tip, method to deal with it is just put some cocking on the end of it. Smear that cocking. The cocking is going to smooth it out. It's going to seal it from your water-based paint and keeping that from swelling up. Now, I just take my finger, you know, smooth it out the best you can so it actually looks smooth like the rest of the trim. And now that's going to be sealed and it's going to look so much better. Like once if you were to prime it and then paint it, sand it and you can brush it again, it's not going to look nearly as good as actually doing this caulking method. So just a simple little tip dealing with cut ends of the MDF that the carpenters you haven't put a nice reveal on. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Hey, heat. Hey, heat. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] So, here's uh this door jam. We've been showing you kind of like the process in it. Now, we've got it shot with our primer, and we're going to let that dry and we'll do like our final inspection. The primer is going to bring out a few little things. I can see some stuff that needs to be sanded, a few little pin holes. Um, looks pretty dang good, but just kind of little few touch-ups with Bondo. Nothing big. So, that's the next step is inspecting all of our trim after we prime it. And then we'll sand that once again, dust it all again, vacuum and dust it, and then we'll shoot two coats of our top coat on it. But, it's coming right along. We're almost done priming all this trim. And we'll show you, you know, what it looks like, you know, spraying this uh door jamb and getting the finish coat on it. Heat. Heat. [Music]