Blogathon Day 8 - Put The Gun Down

When we knew we were coming to La Belle France and whilst watching a TV shopping channel back in the homeland we decided that the one thing we needed because it would be a massive help was a Wagner WallPerfect Flexio 867.

Now, having been here 8 months, we have a large painting job and I need to spring into action and amaze everyone with my paint spraying skills.

The problem is I probably don't have any. As I'm sure I've said before, I have the artistic ability and manual dexterity of a retarded wombat.

It's a bad start when something incorporates the word "perfect" in it's title. The pressure starts to mount up at the very thought it should give even a good finish, let alone offer perfection.

It also delivers the paint by a gun system. I'm not overly accurate even with a spray bottle of water when cleaning windows so a couple of litres of paint being delivered at high pressure is a disaster waiting to happen.

I shall report back if I ever work out how it fits together!

I have previous with a "gun". In this particular case, the delivery of mastic to a letterbox surround at a clients house many years ago. I remembered to cut the end off the nozzle and attach it to the tube, I loaded the tube into the gun, and with the letterbox in place I proceeded to squeeze the trigger, build up the pressure and deliver a fine bead of clear mastic to seal against wind and rain.

So I squeezed, and squeezed, then squeezed a bit more. Eventually the trigger wouldn't move another millimetre and still no sign of the mastic.

Then I remembered, I hadn't cut the end off the tube. Not a problem, I took the nozzle off and proceeded to cut the end off the tube. Unfortunately, having forgotten to take the pressure off the gun. Vesuvius would have been proud of the resulting eruption. Into the air it went and then about half a tube came rushing out and down the gun, covering my arm whilst I ran around panicking about how I was going to clean the mess up. I just about managed to clean my arm with my jumper and got the excess off her door. By now the tube was de-pressurised and I was actually able to finish the job. All would have gone well if she hadn't wanted me to write my name on the cheque she was giving me.

It's not easy to write your name when the cheque keeps getting glued to your hand!