#paint problems
A new card for Techblr Against Humanity:
Accidentally touching the layer of snot-like mold in a year old paint can
NNNNOOOOOO OH GOD
LET ME RECOUNT WITH TODAY’S TALE
We’re doing all our end of the year shop cleaning, as well as striking all the paint from the show we just finished.
Some of these containers of paint that we have stashed under the paint table are ancient.
Today, I stuck my arm into a bucket that I thought was mostly water with some pigment in the bottom. Like I went in up to my elbow.
And then I realized it wasn’t water.
It was mold.
AAAAAAAGH! I’m so sorry that happened to you, that is the WOOORRRRRSSSTTT!
We had a can of Rosco Fire Red like that (because when the heck did we ever need fire red when we had bright red and orange) and the smells that would waft out of that thing when some poor unsuspecting new practicum student removed the lid would have personally offended a skunk.
Also leftover boiled drop starch. You think you might use more of the batch for a flat a couple days down the road or something. You won’t. It will sit there. Waiting. Fermenting. You will fear it. You know the stench that resides within. Eternal. Do not be like me. Pour that sucker OUT.
My personal favorite is being made to open up old, dented, rusted cans that have their tops bulging juuuuuust a bit
Oh! another card!
The gut-wrenching terror that comes when a paint can hisses as you open it.
Man in college they made us use some of the old horrible paint to paint our projects with. We all had the worst smelling canvases ever. I somehow forgot about mine in a closet after I was done and when I was cleaning it out I almost threw up at the smell.
For me it’s always the Flat Plastic Varnish. GODDAMN it’s swamp ass incarnate. When you have watered down sealers scattered to the wind and you open a sprayer that someone left behind and take a whiff expecting it to be water or maybe Ben Moore Low Lustre, and instead get knocked on your ass from the unadulterated ogre buttgas that you’ve unleashed.
On the other hand, I’ve also opened a can of Rosco Ultramarine that smelled, I shit you not, like Reese’s Puff Cereal. We all just sat there huffing it and getting breakfast cravings.
Aw man, PV is one of the worst offenders, and we use it with our super sats so almost everything has it in the mix somewhere.
It’s always a pleasant surprise when the mold smells kinda okay. There was one I opened today that smelled like mint and another that was sort of like artificial strawberry
As a Home Depot paint associate who normally works with fresh paint, it’s really funny to read these stories from people who are seeing this stuff on the back end.
However.
I’ve had my fair share of encounters with rotten paint, especially from customers who are trying to get me to match the old paint color (gosh, the stories I could tell about those dang dirty color matches). I swear that it’s always the big 5-gallon buckets that are the stinkers. Those old hardened plastic lids are super tough to pry off, and when you finally manage to wrench it open, the stink hits the whole paint pit so fast. I once had a line of customers behind this old guy waiting to order, and we opened it up to check the paint, and they all scattered – some of my co-workers among them! I guess they decided to come back later…
