Have you ever wondered why the masking tape your painter uses is so expensive? £7.50 for one roll! What are you actually paying for? Is it really worth it?
The answer is when it comes to painting walls and ceilings it’s really important to pay attention to the joins between the wall and the skirting; the wall and the coving and other walls of different colours. Paint bleed, drips and smudges just won’t do when it come to painting professionally.
This is where we meet the humble Frog Tape (“Not ordinary masking tape!” as some painters will remind you). Frog Tape allows the painter to achieve a sharp line between different painted sections of the room. Unlike ordinary masking tape, frog tape has unique PAINTBLOCK® technology incorporated into the low tack adhesive. This special backing seals the edges of the tape and stops the wet paint from leaking onto the surface below - giving you a sharp edge after you remove the tape. But there’s more to frog tape than perfect edges, frog tape is also extremely low tack and can be applied to fresh paint after only 12 hours! This reduces the risk of pulling the paint off the surface it’s protecting whilst speeding up the waiting time, reducing costs!
If you’ve used frog tape before or seen it in the shop you might have another question ‘why all the different colours?’ Well, there are all sorts of different paints on the market each with different compositions. This created a need to develop different types of frog tape - each specially suited to a different type of paint.
Orange for gloss
Yellow for emulsion
Green for multi-purpose
As well as different colours there are different thicknesses too. Our best practice is to stick to the thinnest for emulsion and a slightly thicker one for gloss. It’s really a matter of personal taste but as a rule of thumb the thinner tapes are less likely to pull when you remove them but thicker tapes have a larger margin of error so your less likely to make a mistake.
Finally, you may have noticed that frog tape comes packaged in a plastic box. I’ve heard people question whether this is really necessary but from experience I’d beg to differ. The plastic box protects the all important edge of the tape, keeping it perfectly smooth and dust free. Grubby and blemished tape makes for a messy finish so it very important to keep the tape as safe as possible - hence the seemingly overprotective box. If this seems confusing, don’t worry, we can help you get the right tape for the job!
So to sum up, if you want perfect edges without smudges or drips it’s well worth paying that little extra for frog tape. A professional finish is all about the small details, contact Forseeko for more information or advice or to book in your job today!
You can purchase FrogTape Greenock's local paint suppliers - The Paint Shed
Check out this video by FrogTape® showing the benefits of FrogTape over normal masking tape: