Caulking involves filling in gap generally around woodwork and trim. In this example we are discussing caulking from start to finish.
So you find yourself with a closed tube of caulk. Your decision is how big do I want this hole? Stay to the smaller side, unless there is a large area that you need to fill. Even when you need to fill a large hole often the smaller size will be enough, you just have to stay there a little longer to get more caulking out of the gun. After you make your cut then you will poke it with a poker. The tube of caulk has a seal after the tip as well so you have to poke it.
In days of yore the caulking gun didn’t always have a poker. I would always try to have a coat hanger available. It didn’t always matter if you had one though because if needed you could put yourself at the mercy of the customer and ask for a coat hanger. That worked until all the old coat hangers weren’t around, you know all they have now is the fancy plastic ones! Now days the caulking will come equipped with a poker. After poking the tube of caulk clean off your poker and put it back.
In this particular example we are knifing off old paint. This circumstance involves a collection of paint around the trim work. This will happen when the old caulking is removed and as the house settles. The paint accumulates where the trim meets the wall. A sand or knifing will fix this problem. Here we used a knife there is a lot of paint and sanding would have taken to long and potentially damaged the dry wall.
Caulking is certainly an art form. Some people caulk full-time, when any job becomes too big then the production-line mentality will take place. Here in this application the job usually falls to the painter. Your guidelines are not to put to much caulking and don’t leave it too long. In this video we did around 5 feet. Put a small bead of caulk in the space between the baseboard and the wall. Take your time. Then glide your finger or use a tool to spread the caulk evenly between the joint, also have water and a sponge or rag handy in case you put too much and it globs around the end of your finger or tool. In this example, an area was to big to fill with one pass so we’ll go back to it for another application later.