Paint touch up

[condoowner]

Hi! this is my first post on this forum, I hope I will find the answers I am searching for, and try to help other members!

I recently bought a condo unit and got the place all painted fresh before moving in. Since then, I manage to make a few minor damages on the walls by either moving furnitures around, dropping objects, and also pencil marks (to install picture frames) that dont wanna go...

For the scratches (furnitures), my painters told me to buy a small paint roll and a small brush and use the paint leftovers to touh up the scratches... I did and it worked, but if I look sideways on the wall, I can notice a small "square" where I repainted. I assume it is because I put too much paint... How can I remove them, and fix the future scratches without having the same problem?

Also, I said I had a few pencil marks (to align frames). At first, I tought to use a normal Steadler eraser, and it also worked, but if I look sideways on the wall , or if light is coming sideways, there is a "glossy" patch where I erased the mark. I assume I pressed too hard. How to fix that?

I would appreciate help on the matter!!

Sincerely
Louis

 

[condoowner]

Nobody knows what to do?

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Condoowner:

The best fix would be to simply paint over those spots using the same paint and the same kind of painting tool you originally used. That is, if you orinally painted with a roller, use the same paint with a smaller roller to go over those spots. The fresh paint will initially be much lighter, but it should dry to the same colour as your wall is now.

And, even if you do that, you might still see the places you repainted. The reason why is because what you're seeing isn't really the paint itself. Your eye is noticing that incident light reflects off the paint surface differently in the places where you repainted and where you erased pencil marks. And, everything has some effect on the surface of the paint and hence the way light reflects off that surface. If you paint with a brush, the surface will be different than if you paint with a roller. If you paint with a roller going from sided to side, then the surface texture left behind will be slightly different than if you paint with the roller going up and down, and your eye will notice the difference in the way light reflects off those slightly different surfaces.

So, your best bet is to try repainting over those areas using the same painting tools and technique as the original paint job, and accepting that as being the best you can do. No professional painter would have been able to do better.

 

[condoowner]

Thanks Nestor!

I guess I'll just touch up again and see what happens.. This time however, I wont put too much paint on the roller....

There is a trick on the internet, they said mix baking soda and water to make a paste and use a towel to rub this paste against the glossy spot and it should "dull" the paint so it does not look like it was "polished".

I never tried that.

Anyways thanks for your reply!

 

[handyguys]

Adding on to what Nestor said - Also make sure you thoroughly mix the touch up paint. The amount of gloss, or lack of gloss, is controlled by additives to the paint, your sheen will be different if its not mixed well.

You want to use a normal quantity of paint on the patched area but you can also blend into the surrounding areas with a roller that has little paint to no paint on it.

Oh, and once you move in and settle in for a while you may forget about it and never notice again, your guests sure wont notice.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Hanyguys:

Thanks for helping out, but there's lotsa newbies in here, and I need to touch on something you said so that they don't get a misconception. You said that it was the additives in the paint that determined the gloss, and I'm sure you meant that word "additive" to mean something that was added to the paint. It's just that conventional wisdom is that paint contains 4 components: a binder, pigments, additives and the thinner. And so the term "additive" when it comes to paints generally means chemicals that are added in small quantities to the paint to adjust it's properties, like how much it spatters, how well it spreads and self levels, how resistant it is to freezing or mildew growing on it and such.

It's actually the extender pigments that are added to the paint tint bases at the factory that determine the gloss the paint will dry to, and extender pigments fall into the category of "pigments", not additives. Without extender pigments in the paint, every paint would dry to a high gloss. Extender pigments are huge rocks almost large enough to see with the naked eye, and just like it's the peanuts that give peanut brittle a rough shape, it's the extender pigments in paint that give it a flatter gloss. The more and coarser ground the extender pigments in the paint, the flatter the paint will dry. Extender pigments are typically chaulk or talcum powder in less expensive paints and pulverized silica sand in the better quality paints. And, like any other rock, extender pigments will settle out of the paint during storage.

So, just as Handyguys says, the paint has to be thoroughly mixed or shaken so that you get a proper match on the gloss of the paint as well.

Without peanuts, all peanut brittle would be high gloss.

 

[handyguys]

too funny - I tried to keep things simple. Flat paint, if not mixed well, can be glossy.

 

[condoowner]

thanks guys for the formidable explanations and help!!

 

[TomS1]

I was once told by an old painter friend that for touchups on flat paint that was originally sprayed on he mixes baking soda into his repair paint to help match 'gloss' so the brushed or rolled on repair will better match in the flat paint. has anyone else tried this?

 

[GetJohntoPaint]

Unless you do your touch-up almost immediately after the initial painting has been done, you're almost always going to notice SOME sort of differential between the original job and your touch up.

This happens, more often than not, because the original paint has either faded or become slightly dirty over time. Naturally it isn't going to be as 'fresh' as the paint you apply from the drum so it's going to stick out a little.

If it's a real problem for you then you may have to get a new batch of that color made up and repaint the entire wall so it is nice and even.