I have been doing apartment maintenance for over a decade and have caulked hundreds of tub surrounds, vanity and kitchen counters, etc.. I have tried my finger, other caulking tools, a credit card (expired!), etc., and this is by far the best caulking tool I have found. The reason I gave it only four stars is the cost. Seems a bit pricey.
I have a few suggestions about the product as well as one (the last one) for using silicone caulk in general.
First, do not apply too much caulk when you run the initial bead. How much is too much? See my second suggestion.
Second, practice. Run a consistently sized bead of caulk, use the tool and then scrape away the caulk and toss it. Do it again. Yes, I know, you are "wasting" caulk. If you want a professional looking job, waste some caulk by practicing. You will find the appropriate bead size through practice. Obviously, the correct bead size will be determined by the edge you are using. The larger the edge the larger the bead size. Practice. Also, begin with a small hole in the caulk tube nozzle. Not enough caulk? Cut a slightly larger orifice. Remember, you can make the hole larger, however, you cannot make it smaller.
Third, keep the tool perpendicular to the surfaces. If you have seen the ad on TV, pay attention to how the demonstrator holds the tool.
Finally, fill a spray bottle (like a windex bottle) with isopropyl alcohol and lightly spray the bead and the business side of the tool. It will make the tool glide easily over the caulk. (You can use this trick with any caulking tool including your finger.) Pro Caulk Complete Caulking Kit (As Seen On TV)
I am normally rather leery of products I see advertised on TV, especially tools like this. My wife surprised me with this set as a Christmas gift, and as I did need to do some caulking around some sinks in the bathroom, I decided to put it to the test.
I was rather impressed with the ease that I got the job done using this set. Both sinks took a total of only 20 minutes, including the time to open the package, prep the area, and clean up.
If there is a catch it is only that you have to be aware of the angle you are holding the tool, and to make sure you keep it square to the work surface. This only takes a small amount of practice, and once I got the hang of it, the project was done in only a few minutes.
Clean up of the tool was only a matter of wiping it off with an old rag.
I recommend this tool for anyone needing a simple way to get clean caulking lines.
I've tried spoons, cardboard edges, and my fingertips. What I like about this product is the silicone does not stick to the edger when wipe off right away. It gives you several groove sizes, but I used the small size to make it look tighter. A thumbs up from a weekend fix-er-upper guy.
I finished doing the caulking on my bathtub. When we bought this house over eight years ago, we didn't realize what we were getting ourselves into. The lady who had owned it previously did the WORST construction on the home. She did it in the cheapest and the easiest way (not always best!!!) possible. It took me three hours total to get the caulking off (I did it in a few days, not in one night) because there was layer upon layer on the bathtub. It didn't take me long to caulk the bathtub. It took about 45 minutes. Just be sure to just caulk a little bit at a time, take your time, and you will have a beautiful final result! I used a warm, damp wash cloth to clean up as I went because if it dries, it's a pain to get off without damaging the caulking you JUST did. I would recommend this product to anyone!
This product did not perform as well as demonstrated on TV--as is the case with most of these types of items.
Rather than making a continuous caulk line, you had to stop and clean the applicator frequently or else the caulk spilled out over the applicator. I used it on a large caulking project and while it made the job easier than doing it with your finger, it was not as good as I had hoped.
The product works as advertised and helped me caulk a shower in a much cleaner fashion that I would have been able to accomplish with a finger. NOTE: you can probably create your own version of one of these with a hard plastic and a tool to cut it into beveled corners. However, this product is so cheap, I think it is worth it to buy rather than make something on your own that will take a bunch of time and not be quite as good.
I have been renovating houses for years and have tiled and caulked many sinks and tubs. I decided to try this set of tools on my last project and found it a complete waste of money. Despite several attempts I was never able to achieve adequate results and ended up reworking the caulk with my finger. I'm out $15 and about 20 minutes of my time. I have found the best results by using blue painting tape to mask off the area I want to caulk and then using a wet finger to smooth the caulk. Remove the tape before the caulk sets up. I wouldn't waste my time or money with this product if I were you.
Applying caulk around a bathtub is a tortuous ordeal. I've seen it done with fingers and maybe the pros can make that work if they do it 3x a week. I've found that a plastic spoon works pretty well but it's still not as easy as I'd like it to be. I saw positive reviews of Procaulk tools and hoped they'd help. They don't. As many points as they provide, none seemed the right size and after trying three times to get one short side of my shower right, I took it all off and started over. And the stripping tool is so soft it shredded 1/4 through my prep. Don't buy this garbage!
The caulking tool did help, and makes a nice bead. It doesn't take much practice, but it does take some. First don't use too much caulk or you will have a mess on your hands. Second, you have to press with enough force so the tool cleanly scrapes away the excess. I'd have given it 5 stars, but the stripping tool is close to worthless, and after a few minutes, mine was definitely worth less. The tool is so soft it just comes apart, bends, gives up where you want it to be tearing out the old caulk. I ended up using a knife instead. - Caulk Tool - Caulking - Tool - Caulk'
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