Possibly erroneous paint observation

[dadiOH]

Yeah. I shook it anyway (I also take labels off mattresses). Lots of bubbles. NP, it was going on a rough tile floor and most broke before setting up.

[salty]

???

The special tool WAS the spout. It was used for the old cardboard cans with the metal top.

Here's a picture of one

[dpb]

...

Can't you read it was a jest even when I say it???? :(

Jeesh!.

--

[Oren]

• bottles were filled from the drum and displayed on the rack by the gas pump (quart of bulk oil was 16 cents). Gas stations used empty/used cardboard cans for display, so they didn't grow legs.

• Oren

--

[KLS]

First of all, I absolutely despise those new self-pouring plastic paint containers. I find the paint very difficult to stir in them, and there's a lot of waste involved since there's no easy way to scrape out the last of the paint.

Secondly, I suspect, JSB, that the reason why your paint cans are looking so much better than the previous owners' is because you are presumably CAREFUL to wipe out as much of the paint in that lip on the can the lid slides into, which means when you slide YOUR lid into YOUR can, you've got a nice airtight seal. This is, of course (what shock, what awe!) what I do and what has served me well for decades. I really think it's as simple as that.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I figured, but it always seemed like too simple a reason. When I bought my first house, I was lucky enough to have a hardware store two blocks away. The husband & wife who ran the place were both painting wizards. I learned a lot of tricks from those people.

[dpb]

Oren wrote: ...

What I meant was we never bought oil except in bulk via 55-gal drum so never bought oil by quart retail until went off to school and by that time the packaged can (albeit the cardboard ones) were king.

I've seen them in collections, etc., but don't recall ever having even seen them in use even at the Co-op retail store -- of course, my recollections of that kind don't go back before the early-/mid-50s--I'm approaching geezerhood, but not quite _that_ geezerish quite yet... :)

The way I got the current collection of quart cans is that when the Co-op refinery went out of production Dad bought the entire stock of the particular oil we used in all the farm trucks they had in stock. That was over 20 years ago now, and I've probably still got 50 gal left. Since all the old Chevy trucks that used 20W single-grade are gone except for the one '58 I've kept as a small "beater" around the place for yard work, etc., the rate at which I can use it is pretty small being as I may not change the oil in that truck more than once a year any more...otoh, the tractors use anywhere from 5 to 7 gal/change depending on which one and at every 100 hrs, that runs up pretty quickly... :( Although the biodiesel and improved oils, the newest which also has large capacity, has stretched change time to 150 hrs -- we'll see how that goes w/ time as we have them all on a tribology monitoring program. At 100K and up, that's a pretty easy expense to justify... :)

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Interesting point. I'm sure cans are available in different grades and with di different coatings. Probably not a concern if you use it all up, but I've had paint contaminated by rust when I wanted to do a touch up a year later.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

I looked at a few more of the other guy's paint cans tonight, and found that on a few, the entire lid is rusted, not just the edges where he obviously abused them. These cans have the same 2003 date mark as the others.

[David L. Martel]

Joe,

Unless you were there when the previous owner bought the paint it seems silly to assume that the cans where originally sold in 2003 or that the paint cans were not damaged to begin with. My limited experience is that paint cans stored out of the elements don't rust in just a few years. That these cans have leads me to wonder how old the cans are. how the cans were stored et c. These are things that you don't know.

Dave M.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

True, he could've bought them in 1997 and waited until 2003 to paint. My comments are based on what they said when I first toured the house in 2004. "We painted last year". It's more than a few cans, though. A total of 8 from two different sources, Behr and Sears. All damaged?

[salty]

Were the paint cans rusty when you took possession or did they rust after that? Somewhere along the timeline, they were exposed to moisture. Maybe a plumbing leak, or maybe they were stored elsewhere for a time.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

No....not rusty when I arrived. They were not stored elsewhere, nor were they exposed to any leaks. It's just weird.

[charlie]

do you have other chemicals in the area? things with HCL, like a gallon of pool acid, tend to rust things in their local area even if tightly closed, if there is no good ventilation.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

No.

[Twayne]

I suspect it may well be the issue. You have no idea what conditions existed, or why, in that missing year. Also, becuase the cans were stacked neatly when you moved in does not mean they were stored that way the entire prior year. There is also the possibility that the dates on the cans are not purchased dates but rather are "last used" dates, as I often do, so I know at least when it was last known to be good paint. Nor do you know that the covers of the cans were well sealed for the preceding year. And on and on and on. It's a variable you cannot dispose of.