Tool Tuesday – Caulking Gun

By: Dad, How Do I?

How to use a caulking gun.

It’s a useful tool to have because not only can you use it to caulk your bathroom, but your siding among other things.
You can also use it for certain adhesives like liquid nails.
It’s also good for sticking down roofing.

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Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)

00:00
[Music]
00:00
hey kids nice to see you again
00:03
uh so today i’m going to show you how to
00:06
use a
00:07
caulking gun it’s a pretty handy tool
00:10
and it costs under 10 but there’s a lot
00:14
of
00:14
different things you can use it for
00:16
besides just caulk
00:17
um so like if you’re gonna caulk uh
00:21
your uh you know your siding
00:24
if you got some um some cracks in your
00:28
siding i can show you how to do that and
00:29
i’ll just walk you through that
00:31
i think and this is only like a couple
00:33
bucks i’m not getting paid for this but
00:35
um
00:35
it’s fairly inexpensive uh for this
00:38
particular
00:39
um caulk um and it’s nice to
00:43
yeah so it’s a good way to practice this
00:45
is like a
00:46
couple bucks i think it’s under two
00:48
dollars um
00:49
and you basically just cut the tip off
00:52
and then um yeah i’ll walk you through
00:55
that though so anyway
00:56
i would suggest that if you have some
00:58
siding
00:59
and you’ve never used a caulking gun
01:01
before it’s a good place to practice
01:02
because you’re not going to hurt
01:03
anything unless
01:03
you know if you have a you know a dark
01:06
colored house and you put
01:08
white caulk on it you know that’ll stand
01:11
out but you
01:12
you know if you use a clear caulk or if
01:14
you’ve got a caulk that’s the same color
01:16
as your paint
01:17
um you could practice using uh
01:20
using this cheaper caulk so um when i
01:23
actually caulk a bathroom i use this
01:25
silicone caulk so this stuff is latex
01:28
and it cleans up with water
01:30
and like i said you could practice with
01:32
it and then this stuff
01:34
silicone is what you want to use when
01:36
you’re putting caulk on your bathtub
01:39
i’m not going to show you necessarily
01:40
how to do that how to remove caulk and
01:42
how to put it on i just want to
01:44
introduce you to the tool and then in a
01:45
future video
01:47
i’ll i’ll show you how to do that and
01:48
then another thing you could use is
01:50
liquid nails this stuff is pretty cool
01:53
it’s pretty nice it um you know certain
01:57
things that you need to attach that you
01:59
aren’t able to
02:00
screw like i have um
02:04
some tile little pieces of tile on my
02:08
front porch
02:09
area um that come up sometimes they fall
02:11
off and i just use this
02:13
i’ve got my caulking gun use this put it
02:16
on the back and
02:17
stick it to it so um anyway going into a
02:20
lot of detail before i get to my dad
02:22
joke
02:23
so let’s let’s get the dad joke for you
02:26
uh so you know the new caulking gun
02:29
was uh bragging he was walking around
02:32
telling all the other tools how cool he
02:33
was and
02:34
the old drill that had been around for a
02:36
while walked up to him and said hey you
02:38
are a pretty good
02:39
tool but quit being so caulky
02:42
so anyway let’s get started
02:45
okay so here’s the basics of a caulking
02:48
gun okay
02:49
and each one is a little bit different
02:51
um some are nicer some are cheaper
02:53
right so this one actually is kind of
02:55
middle of the road
02:57
um there’s certain ones that have a
02:58
little spot back here
03:01
that you can stick uh the tip
03:04
the tip of the caulking tube in and
03:07
snip it this particular one doesn’t have
03:09
that
03:10
um what else does it have and so it has
03:13
this thing every one of them has one of
03:15
these
03:15
this is a little uh
03:18
pokey thing so when you cut the tip
03:22
off because it’s still sealed inside
03:24
there right so you can cut the tip off
03:27
and then you stick this down inside and
03:28
puncture it so then
03:30
it’s flowing through there so i’m going
03:32
to walk you through that real quick
03:34
okay and when you put it in see how it’s
03:36
got this
03:37
it’s like this so it ratchets so as i
03:40
use it
03:40
see how that thing’s moving down it’s
03:43
squeezing the caulk
03:44
out the out the other end right so when
03:47
i first start
03:48
i need to pull this all the way back
03:51
right like that
03:52
and then as i as i press this
03:56
gun right it just continually pushing
04:00
out
04:00
whatever you’re using the the flash you
04:03
know flashing or liquid nails or
04:05
uh caulk so yeah so that’s how that
04:08
works so basically you just pull it back
04:10
each one’s a little different sometimes
04:11
there’s like i have a gun and an older
04:13
gun uh
04:14
that had a bunch of caulk on it so i
04:16
went ahead and bought a new gun so you
04:17
could see it
04:18
but um there’s a lever on the outside i
04:20
have to actually push that down
04:22
and pull this back so each one is a
04:24
little bit different but there
04:26
there’s a lot of similarities so so we
04:28
start there okay
04:30
um so here we’re gonna use this latex
04:33
caulk um and i’m gonna go outside and
04:36
show you on
04:36
um my sighting what i’m talking about um
04:39
so first off
04:40
you need to snip this and i always snip
04:43
it at a little bit of an angle and just
04:45
pay attention to this right so
04:47
if i snip it close to the top i can make
04:49
a small little hole if i got a small
04:51
bead that i want to lay down right
04:54
if i have a bigger area then i can cut
04:57
it further back
04:58
right to make it bigger and then it
04:59
comes out faster right
05:01
so so basically you can use a an x-acto
05:04
knife or a scissors
05:06
even so i’m gonna go ahead and cut this
05:08
with a scissors
05:09
and cut it at an angle
05:15
oh scissors is having a tough time
05:17
getting through it
05:18
this particular scissors yeah that’s not
05:20
gonna work okay i’m just gonna go ahead
05:22
and cut it with my
05:24
exacto knife then just be careful with
05:26
an exacto knife right
05:28
because if it can cut through this
05:31
it can cut through your table it can cut
05:33
through this is a little shop table that
05:35
i built so
05:36
i’m not worried about really about the
05:38
table but basically i just cut that
05:40
there right
05:40
see that how i cut it at an angle too um
05:43
because i want this one to come out
05:45
uh pretty fast because it’s outdoors and
05:48
there’s big holes right there’s big gaps
05:50
that i want
05:51
that i want to fill so now next step it
05:54
still
05:54
won’t come out so we got to puncture it
05:56
right so we take our
06:00
we take our caulking gun and we swing
06:03
that
06:04
poker out and we stick it inside there
06:08
and we just puncture it okay
06:11
so we punctured it so now we got a
06:13
little bit on there okay
06:15
i you can wipe that off i don’t have a
06:17
rag but i’m just gonna put it back here
06:19
to get it out of my way
06:21
okay and then now so now we’ve got our
06:26
trigger pulled all the way back and now
06:28
we’re gonna just
06:29
slip this inside here like that okay
06:32
and then now we’re gonna start
06:36
start squeezing the trigger okay and
06:38
then
06:39
it’s gonna i can already start seeing
06:41
it’s coming up the tip here
06:42
i don’t wanna i don’t wanna have any
06:44
come out right now but
06:46
we can go ahead and go outside and i’ll
06:48
i’ll just show you that and the nice
06:49
thing about this
06:50
too so this again if you just did it
06:53
outside or you could do it up
06:54
you know you could practice on a piece
06:56
of wood or whatever before you’re going
06:58
to put some caulk
06:59
like you know there’s different ways if
07:01
you’re gonna caulk your bathtub
07:03
um that you can tape it off if you want
07:06
you can tape it off with
07:07
you know like frog tape um that works
07:09
well
07:10
uh if you’re really worried about um how
07:13
well you do but if you practice a few
07:14
times you can get pretty good at
07:16
it it doesn’t take that much as long as
07:17
you don’t get you know
07:19
in your head a little a little bit where
07:21
you’re overthinking it but you can just
07:22
kind of keep a nice line kind of coming
07:25
as you’re squeezing the trigger so you
07:27
gotta you know there’s a little bit of a
07:28
finesse to it but
07:30
anyway i’m gonna take this outside and
07:31
uh and we’ll
07:33
show you what i’m talking about all
07:35
right so
07:36
you know a lot of times there’s gaps
07:37
here right underneath here this is
07:40
actually looking
07:41
pretty good in this area but i’m just
07:43
showing you just to show you how
07:44
you know how this works so basically all
07:47
you’re gonna do
07:48
is you’re just gonna start squeezing
07:53
there you go now it’s coming out
07:57
okay that’s a good way to practice um
08:00
with this
08:00
uh with this latex
08:03
it cleans up with water so it’s really
08:05
easy so you can even just put your
08:06
finger
08:06
again this is outdoors so you don’t have
08:08
to worry about it being perfect but with
08:10
your bathtub
08:11
you know you want your bathtub to look
08:13
nice right because people are going to
08:14
come see it a lot of times people will
08:16
use this latex
08:17
it doesn’t look good um i
08:20
highly recommend the silicone so anyway
08:24
uh this is i think latex caulk
08:27
plus silicone get the the real silicone
08:31
so
08:31
anyway so i just laid down a bead there
08:33
anyway it looks pretty good because i’m
08:35
used to it so because you’re squeezing
08:36
this and you’re kind of dragging it at a
08:38
certain pace in order to keep that
08:40
that from you know getting too big or
08:44
too small you want it to be
08:46
at a certain pace right so it looks
08:48
actually pretty good
08:50
right and then i could because i’m
08:51
outside this is latex cleans up with
08:53
water
08:54
um i could just run my finger over it
08:57
and it’ll clean up pretty easy
08:58
so okay all right
09:01
so that’s that um and then that
09:04
liquid nails um trying to think i don’t
09:08
think i have anything i can use it on i
09:10
hate to open it
09:11
that stuff’s a little bit more expensive
09:12
than this um
09:15
but all you do is just use it the same
09:17
way
09:18
you know um and then squeeze a little
09:20
bit on and then
09:22
just mash it and it holds pretty well
09:25
or you know if you’re going to be using
09:26
it for
09:29
something where you want to make sure
09:31
something holds and you still can even
09:32
put a nail into it it’s not a bad idea
09:34
to use that
09:35
um like as a secondary thing so you put
09:38
it on
09:38
and then you mash whatever you’re trying
09:40
to hang up there just remember
09:42
like if um if you’re hanging something
09:45
up and then when you go to remove it
09:47
it’s gonna probably destroy the the
09:49
sheetrock
09:50
when you pull it off if you’re using
09:51
liquid nails if you’re going that heavy
09:53
right if you just want something
09:54
like you’re putting up a shelf don’t use
09:56
lick of nails unless
09:58
it’s a super heavy duty shelf and you
09:59
don’t care if you’re ruining
10:01
the sheetrock so anyway um
10:05
i think that’s about it i just wanted to
10:07
kind of walk you through this and we’ll
10:08
do maybe
10:09
down the road we’ll do some projects
10:12
with it but i wanted to introduce you to
10:13
the tool
10:14
okay all right so i hope that was
10:18
helpful to you
10:19
one last thing i wanted to show you so
10:21
remember how i said on
10:22
on another one i have a lever on the
10:24
back side
10:26
um so when you squeeze this
10:29
okay when you squeeze it there’s
10:31
pressure being put on from
10:33
this right working its way through to
10:35
push the caulk or whatever you have in
10:37
it
10:37
out okay and so um
10:40
on that particular one where i got the
10:42
little lever
10:44
if i’m if i’m going to town with the
10:45
caulk right and then i
10:47
stop it there’s still pressure on it and
10:50
so it’s
10:51
wanting to force that caulk out and so i
10:53
always on that one i used to have to
10:55
push the button
10:56
and pull this back the nice thing about
10:58
this this is considered a dripless
11:00
there’s not it kind of has a little give
11:02
in it to keep the pressure off so it’s
11:05
not
11:05
pushing so hard so i can just stand here
11:08
and it’s not pushing that caulk out
11:11
okay so anyway just be aware of that
11:13
like um
11:14
on that particular gun i’d be out uh
11:17
putting that liquid nails
11:18
on those little slates that i was
11:19
talking about i put it on
11:21
and then if i set the gun down that
11:24
liquid nail is
11:25
still coming out right so just be aware
11:28
of that right
11:29
if you get it too cheap of a gun then
11:32
um it it can still be pushing the caulk
11:35
out
11:35
so just be aware of that okay so i hope
11:38
that was helpful for you thanks for
11:39
watching and god bless you

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This post was previously published on YouTube.

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