Tools For Painters | Tool Review Hand Masker, Brush Buddy, AU-1 Sealant

this crazy Idaho painter here on paint live TV today I'm going to be talking about some more tools here on tool talk Tuesday the first tool or product I'm going to be talking about is Tower sealants au1 construction sealer so I've been using hot Tower sealants for quite some time and one of the new products I started using recently is au1 commercial construction sealant this is a water-based sealant so you don't have to use any type of chemicals like mineral spirits to clean it up I started using it for the bonding capabilities and um to span large gaps on certain projects that I was dealing with and one of them you know was on vinyl windows and the people installing it didn't install them very well left huge gaps and one of the things you definitely want to do is put back a rod in there to fill large gaps of my concern was using the typical products that we would use to caulk the windows it just wouldn't span the gap um a large enough Gap and then brand new vital windows are very slick and I was really concerned about adhesion one of the things I learned about au1 is it's going to adhere to hard to stick to surfaces and it's absolutely amazing so I use it on the vinyl windows another thing I used it on recently was resealing trailers and the trailers got a powder coat on them it's going to be another slick hard to bond to surface and Tower sealants au1 is absolutely amazing when it comes to bonding you know too hard to stick surfaces like that plastic metal um coated surfaces like surfaces and um it worked really really well you know for me in that situation there's some things on here that it doesn't really pertain to me and what I'm doing but it it exceeds ASTM c-920 standards it exceeds TCB sat-30 standards it says it's exceptional resistance to weathering UV and extreme joint movement bit says it's in exterior and interior applications vertical and horizontal joints up to two inches wide and it's also paintable and one thing that we always want to be using um as painters typically is going to be a paintable um caulking or sealant so I've had I've used it in multiple different applications hard to stick surfaces large gaps I've used it in conjunction with baccarat and it's performed extremely well so one thing I want to talk about is the tooling capabilities of this commercial construction sealant you got to say the consistency of it on the butteriness of it um you know how um I'd say wet it is it tools better than any caulking or sealant that I've ever used typically when you're using on products like this that are designed to span large gaps a lot of them are urethane type products polyurethane type products that are not water-based um they're very thick they don't tool very well and they're hard to smooth out and level out and then you actually got to use chemicals like mineral spirits to clean up with and which is messy and actually not good for your skin either so I did talk about it being a water-based product so um at the end of the day if you've got the product on your hand you just clean up with water but when it comes to tooling the product I'm just using typically a tile sponge or a caulking sponge keep that caulking sponge wet and I'm tooling it with my fingers I typically don't use any type of tools to Tool it just using my bare hands because it Smooths out absolutely perfectly with your you know the pads of your fingers when you're actually caulking so another feature of au1 construction sealant is it does come in a multitude of different colors there's quite a few colors out here there's bronze here there's white I did a video um multiple videos ceiling travel trailers resealing travel trailers and I use different colors because we weren't actually painting the product one of the things I like about this product too is you it is paintable but if you don't paint it it doesn't stay tacky over a period of time and collect dust like most caulking or sealants do so it is um au1 construction sealant I do highly recommend it it is um it runs about 529 you know a tube you can get it at paint life Supply Co it's not cheap as a sealant but it serves a great purpose in certain situations vinyl windows and you're caulking on powder coated surfaces metal surfaces anything hard to stick anything over a half an inch or three quarter of an inch I'm going to go right to au1 commercial construction sealant anything under a half an inch Tower Tech 2 is absolutely amazing and it's my everyday talking that I use so these I keep these in my vehicle au1 and then Tower tattoo for all my caulking on X years and Interiors so the next little I'm Gadget I'm going to talk about is this little tiny thing I was sent these things in the mail um I didn't buy them I don't even know how much they cost I'll try to figure out you know what the um retail cost is on this thing and so what is it Anyway so um if you're familiar with the brush buddy the brush buddy is a device that I absolutely love that holds your brush on your bucket right there and it either screws on or it sticks on with um 3M Adhesive and so I always screw mine on see bent up there's two little screws it comes with the screws but it comes with an adhesive also if you don't want to screw into your brush but this device is another type of device and there's many of them out there and I've never seen any of them that is as good as a brush body but there's a lot of them out there and a lot of them that are really bad when I first saw this thing I was like well that's kind of interesting and it actually just Clips on your brush and I thought well that's actually pretty cool because it does unlike the brush buddy it doesn't have as big of a profile it's not going to get in your way I mean I don't think it really gets in my way the way it is but this device here sticks on there Clips on it just like that and I thought gosh that's actually um pretty cool let me see if you clip on there so similar to a brush buddy I started using it and right off the bat I um discovered one of the main problems with this thing if you start to get um paint built up on the edge of your bucket because the tolerance it's pretty tight it's a really tight fit right there if you get any paint built up on the edge of your bucket it doesn't just slide on there and clip on I got some paint right here on the edge right there and so it starts to cause an issue getting in there then it actually if you start to put any pressure it'll come off you know really easily and then another thing I noticed that is um just because it kind of just Clips on there you know um with a little bit of pressure your grass comes off of it a little bit too easy and I had my brush fall in the paint you know multiple times but I think the whole concept and the whole idea is pretty dang cool I um I think there's got to be some way that it can be secured to the brush a little bit um a little bit better so I would know when I was working because you're just working pretty fast I'm gonna try to get my brush on there and it just kind of flips and moves right off so there it is I don't even know what you call a device if I'll figure out you know what it's called and we'll post it you know right here on on the video and if there's a price to it I don't know um it fits different size brushes on a brand new bucket it slides on there pretty easily but I think if it was just a little bit wider that might give you you know a little bit more tolerance to getting clipped so you get the clip right there I just tried to hang on the bucket and it knocked it up right here so I do love the brush buddy I do highly recommend that I use them on most of my brushes um this little device is it something that you know I would use I wouldn't personally use it maybe it needs a little bit more work to be secured to the brush all right the next product I'm going to be talking about today is the 3M straight cut blade and if you've never heard this I heard this tool if you've never seen it I think it's a must-have tool and this is the device right here typically on my masters right here maskers you can get paper blades you can get film blades or you can get a straight cut blade we're typically always using film and paper I never use the paper blades because the film blade can be used for paper or plastic the paper blade can't be used for film we don't like to have to switch Masters or anything we just like to use one masker for paper and plastic so we're always using a film blade film blade is extremely sharp and it cuts the film but you can see right here this is a good example of the film cut without a straight cut blade on it right here in the film if you can see in the video it's not cut straight and um that actually you know becomes an issue when you run your um your film across the window you run it down the sides and it's all wavy because it's not cut straight then you got to use multiple rows the tape to fill in the edges right there so you can see how uneven and what actually causes that is there's flex and um your mask or when you go to tear off your plastic and on the paper blade so so the it flexes here the blade also flexes so what the straight cut blade does it attaches to a film blade when you purchase a straight cut blade it comes with a film blade we've got multiple holes right here you know for different size of tapes you know when you can attach your film blade actually attach it to the the one and a half inch hole right here and I actually never move the blade so if you're wondering what this hole on the blade is for this is for your straight cut blade so this right blade you can see right here attaches right there but it actually comes already attached because you buy the straight cut um device and you get the blade at the same time so I've actually never even removed one before you know so here it is this is the straight cut blade um this device comes right here slides goes right inside your um plastic and the core of the plastic now there's gonna be no flex on the plastic no flex on the blade so now you're going to get a straight cut every time and that's eventually going to save you you know on your side's masking you know you're not have to run multiple rows of one inch tape to cover the masking so you can see now here's my cut and my cut is nice and straight right there versus this cut right here which is all wavy right here when this goes down your window it's going to wave go back and forth and you have to fill that in the straight cut blade one of those devices makes the plastic tearing a lot easier because there's no flex in the blade you don't have to put nearly as much pressure on the blade because when you're pulling on the the plastic without a straight cut blade you have to put more force on right here right here because it's flexing when you're tearing it this um a lot of this really comes into play as the blade starts to get Dole when the Blade's brand new the plastic Cuts pretty easily Cuts pretty straight but you'll eventually see I've got some you know dings on the blade right here it's bent right here um they just get bent they get you know tossed around they do get dull from cutting you know paper over time and the straight cut blade will um perform a lot better even with a worn blade so a straight cut blade I think it's 29.99 for this device and we always have at least you know one of these devices in our vehicle and when I'm actually using this is when I'm using film to mask Windows all right so what's the final verdict are these three products products I would be using what about you would you use any of these products let us know in the comments section below [Music]