November 2012 Hunting Beach House Painting Project walk through and interview.
1:17 Fresh Start Primer from Benjamin Moore
2:36 Fine Paints of Europe Hollandlac
4:40 Benjamin Moore Paint Aura siding Paint
Transcript:
John Shearer: I’m in Huntington Beach, at my friend Kent Weiss’s house. This is Huntington Beach and right next door to where I spent the night last night, I noticed a crew with a very, very clean work site and I had to walk over here because we all know I’m a painting contractor, and I met this gentleman.
Jim Scott: How ya doin’?
John: Tell me your name.
Jim: Jim Scott, been painting for 30 years in this area here.
John: Okay so, tell us what’s going on at this job site, it’s a residence, and I see your crew is working.
Jim: Yeah we got Tony up on the ladder, he’s been with me 17 years, we got Chewy down there—15, and Loozma’s been harassing me probably for the last 5 years. And we got this house that was built about 45 years ago, everything is redwood, the entire house ire redwood and we’re using Fresh Start Primer on the entire house and then Aura for the finish—Semi Gloss on all the…
John: Let’s take a look at the prep work, so you’re telling me you’re using a waterborne—explain to me, a waterborne….
Jim: Waterborne Fresh Start Bonding Primer Stain Blocker, so…
John: On this raw cedar?
Jim: On all this raw cedar, and all the raw redwood on the front of the house, two coated and back rolled wherever it needs it.
John: And could you use oil if you wanted to?
Jim: We could use oil if we wanted to, yes.
John: But you like the Fresh Start.
Jim: We like the Fresh Start, we like not dealing with the oils if we don’t have to down here.
John: Huh, well do you have any of this redwood that’s been primed that I can see?
Jim: Oh yes we do, in the back!
John: Let’s take a look, but you don’t have stain coming through?
Jim: No, it’s blocked out really well, I’ll show you! These primers actually absorb the staining into the finish and then block it out. And then when you top coat it you don’t (microphone malfunction). Here is one of our patch jobs here; we basically re-stuccoed this entire wall.
John: So you re-stuccoed this wall.
Jim: Yeah, almost this entire wall, everywhere that you see white we re-stuccoed it and then I took, right here, one and a half gallons of Fresh Start, sprayed it on and back rolled all of it to fill it in really nicely.
John: I’m very impressed with the way you’ve protected the grounds here.
Jim: Thank you, thank you! I think it’s one of the best things my guys do there, they are phenomenal maskers. Now here we still have to fill this in, this little dark line won’t be there when we are done.
John: What are you going to fill that in with?
Jim: We’re going to put some more stucco in it, just like, this is all stucco, you see that nice line? So my guy will put some stucco down there and fill it all in so we’ll have a nice line all the way down here, kind of do the same thing right there.
John: What are you doing with this metal?
Jim: This metal, we’re going to use the paint from Holland and we’re going to use the brilliant oil based gloss enamel.
John: Hollandlac Fine Paints of Europe?
Jim: That’s it my friend! You got it.
John: And here’s some other ones that you’ve taken down.
Jim: Yes, we took them down they were all fine when we got here, we pressure washed them with 3500 PSI rotor heads, and it removed everything that was loose. Now we’ll hand sand them and we’ll two coat finish them with oil-based enamel.
John: Now let me ask you this, was this a product recommendation from you or did the client drive that?
Jim: No that was a recommendation from me, so was the Aura. Then here’s some windows that were in terrible condition. I re-puttied and re-glazed the ones that were bad, we sanded them, we cleaned them up and that’s three coats of primer on redwood windows.
John: This was all raw wood?
Jim: This was all raw, there was no paint left on this.
John: Wow.
Jim: And that’s two coats, I’ll let this dry all day, then I’ll tap one more coat on it.
John: And then what sheen in the Aura?
Jim: Semigloss, two coats. Taking everything the extra mile.
John: This is excellent work.
Jim: Thank you very much, I’m glad to here that!
John: So again, all this stuff on the stucco that I’m seeing is white, is that all repair work that you guys have done?
Jim: No, that’s just basically overspray up here, that’s just overspray on the window, but everything you see down (microphone malfunction)… this is all new stucco here, that’s just overspray.
John: Am I right in saying that this fascia board has all been prepped too and has a coat of primer on it?
Jim: Yes, that was sanded off, 90 percent of the paint came off of that, it’s all been power sanded and one coat of primer, so we’ve got to put another coat of primer and then two more coats of finish.
John: Wow.
Jim: With one coat you see a little bit of a bleed through, but as you see in this window over here, this has got three full coats and it’s absorbed out really well, very little bleed coming through and on this type of primer you might see it come through but it absorbs into the finish and stops right there it doesn’t come through the final finish.
John: I’ve noticed over here, you have a very organized job site, a few pumps to say that you’re definitely a pro. I’ve noticed lots of Aura paint, why (microphone malfunction)
Jim: …here’s a 50 and here’s this one over here and I educate them to let them chose the paint that they want and normally this is the one they’ve been buying on the last four straight jobs.
John: And what sheen do you prefer?
Jim: Stucco flat, all the woodwork is going to be semi.
John: Tell me, I see the color swatches over here so you’re [microphone malfunction]….so it looks like a lumber store. So your Benjamin Moore dealer is…
Jim: Ganahl Lumber
John: Ganahl Lumber and they have actually put a [microphone malfunction] on top of their sticker and then they put their color swatch…
Jim: Underneath it.
John: Underneath it!
Jim: That’s right, so it doesn’t get on you when you’re carrying it around and stuff.
John: And it looks like they’ve done that for…
Jim: They did it on all of it, the reason why they didn’t here is because this is just straight white, so there was no need to do it because this is, it comes this white, this is my window cover.
[microphone malfunction]
Jim: …yeah they take good care of me, they babysit me really well. They are great color matchers.
John: Are these color matches or are they straight from one of the…
Jim: They’ll actually, those are their colors, but when I have a color match, they do great.
John: [microphone malfunction]
Jim: They can do, I can take a piece of fabric in there and they’ll match it for me.
John: And is there one color-matcher?
Jim: Yes.
John: What’s his name?
Jim: Uh, it’s a lady, her name is Kris. She does really good, I like her, she’s a great gal, we have fun, we get to laugh together, she’s a great gal.
John: Can she mix like a, can you give her a Sherwin-Williams color and can she do it in one shot, or does she usually like to do it once and then make a little adjustment.
Jim: I’ve seen her do it both ways, sometimes there’s a slight adjustment depending on what color it is and I’ve seen her hit it right off the button first time around. I’ve seen her go both ways.
John: Tell me about the pump [microphone malfunction]
Jim: …in A1 condition, notice there’s no paint build up on the [microphone malfunction]…we keep them really clean and I got 150 foot of hose so I can set it up one time and I go around the entire house without moving my sprayers. So this is for meaty work, and this is for my small stuff. This is for all my enamel work, this is my little baby sprayer, some primers and some…
John: Enamel work, like you’re talking about the trim.
Jim: Right, all my enamel work, my windows, stuff like my doors, I use this sprayer here. Easy clean up, easy set up. This is kind of in between, then I have a 220 Greco gas rig for when I want to get big, do some commercial jobs and do some heavy spraying, then we bring the big gun out. Then I have a small lacquer sprayer gun, for just lacquers and we only use the real lacquers, we don’t use any of the water-based stuff, we still use the real stuff. We use Magna-Lacque, which is a ML Campbell product, self-priming, so you don’t have to put a sanding sealer underneath it.
John: So you just put the topcoat right on top of it?
Jim: Yeah, it’s a sanding sealer unto itself. Great product, about 65 dollars a gallon.
John: That’s awesome.
Jim: Phenomenal stuff, best lacquer I’ve ever used.
John: So can I ask you some [microphone malfunction]….
[microphone malfunction]
[10:48] Jim: There’s my crew there, absolutely. And these are notes from clients that came out to my truck when I wasn’t looking and wrote these notes about my company.
John: Wow, look at that.
Jim: This client right here, I’ve been working for for nineteen years, they’ve spent over a hundred thousand dollars with me.
John: That’s a testament. I bet they don’t even [microphone malfunction]
Jim: Oh no, I’m their man. And as you can see there’s no paint running down the back of my truck like you see most painting contractors. My truck is clean, looks like a brand new—this truck is seven years old.
John: Is there a difference here as I’m looking through, and being a painting contractor myself, is there, are there finished drops, are their prep drops?
Jim: Inside drops and outside drops. We won’t take an outside drop and put it in someone’s house and all my drops that are inside, we only use one side, the bottoms are always perfectly new and clean. So when you go into, on a floor or a carpet, you’re not putting a dirty drop down.
John: Do you have them marked with…?
Jim: Duct tape, some of them are duct tape, but now we just use a big giant marker and we put a big “x” on it with a black marker so my guys see it, that side always goes down.
John: Man, so this must be the exterior stucco patch that…
Jim: Yeah, this is a great stucco patch.
John: Did you get it from that hardware store that you mentioned?
Jim: Ganahl Lumber, great exterior fast patch, you can pretty much put it on today in the morning and paint on it in the afternoon.
John: And who are you buying the Fine Paint’s from?
Jim: The Fine Paint’s from Ganahl Lumber! They’re taking good care of me, they’ve got everything I need!
John: It sounds like a lot more than a lumber store!
Jim: Yeah they’ve got it all, it’s a huge store, they’ve got the lumber, they have everything going, tools, you name it, it’s all there for every kind of contractor.
