I have used caulking in the corners of my room before painting,. only a thin bead smoothed with a finger. I have given this several coats of paint but it still keeps splitting/ cracking. As I am about to cut in a differant colour on the one wall I would like to sort this out before I cut in. Any suggestions? Thanks for your time
Never had a problem with caulk cracking. Did you use a decent make or was it 'el cheapo'. I used Wickes caulk once and threw it away as soon as I started using it. You could try an oil based undercoat over the caulk and see if this sorts it
All caulk instructions will say you can paint over in half an hour but if you do you can get the cracking as you have. Its always best to leave overnight or longer before painting. You can try running another bead over it or Berties idea of oil base paint should do the trick
I agree with BB,using oilbase does do the trick,I find that when I caulk I try and leave it till the next day,or before I finish for the day, I caulk, then the next morning its fine. I know you can paint over it in an hour or so, but thats when I sometimes have the problems, when that happens, and I normally notice before I paint, I then go over it again, but thats only if I can go off and do something else.
I'm not at work today, finished job yesterday, so have all day to do what I want, start next job monday.
I only use caulk on the tops of skirtings/dados and down the sides of arcitraves, then only if the gap is no bigger than say 3mm any bigger than this and the caulk will shrink in,leading to "extra" work. I have seen on site gaps of about up to half inch wide then asked to caulk them I then politely refuse saying that the gap is so wide due to poor planning/building. The way I then takcle these wide ones is use a gap filler i:e gripfil taking care to not have any protruding the gap wait untill it has hardened then use powder filler rubbing it down ensuring I get a nice square edge. This of course has to be paid for as an extra. If there is a gap between ceiling and wall I would never use caulk as you cant rub down and get a perfect square edge. If the crack is a fine one filler sould suffice but if it is a big gaping one I use scrim tape folded from the ceiling and wall then use "easy fill" over the tape untill it is covered, then rub down square and paint.