Support &
How-To's

When looking at a window, the wood and seals must be protected from sunlight (UV radiation) to slow down the aging process. This can be done by covering the wood and seals with a protective coating (e.g. paint). To ensure that the seals are fully protected, the coating has to extent up to 1 mm or more on the glass.

Over time, sunlight (UV radiation), air pollution, continuous fluctuations in temperature and humidity and continuous cycles of contraction and expansion will cause visible and invisible cracks in almost all the materials in and around the house.

Looking at a window, over time small visible and invisible cracks will appear in the wood, seals and in all transitions from wood to seal to glass or wood to glass or wood to wood.

To prevent moisture from penetrating these small cracks, with all consequences, it is necessary that all the cracks in the wood, seals and transitions are covered with a protective coating (e.g. paint).

To achieve this, the protective coating has to extent up to 1 mm or more on the glass so that the protective coating can also reach, fill and seal all the cracks in the transitions to the glass, creating a 100% protection from moisture all around.

Indoors looking at a wall and the wall skirting, there is often an ugly gap between the two.

By applying the masking tape 1 mm from the wall onto the skirting, the gap in question can be sealed in advance with sealant and then painted with the wall or, if the gap is not too wide, immediately filled with wall paint. After removing the masking tape, the gap is no longer visible, the 1 mm merges into the wall and the end result is great.

Applying masking tape “zero” mm from the wall give rise to three problems.

• The gap in question is covered by the masking tape but not sealed allowing the wall paint to flow locally along the tape filling the gap also locally.
• Applying masking tape “zero” mm from the wall means in practice: sometimes against the wall, sometimes on the wall, sometimes off the wall.
• After removing the masking tape, both the gap and the previous color of the wall are locally and alternately still visible and invisible, making the end result disappointing.

This third visual aspect applies to almost everything that needs to be painted and that has a transition from one color to another.

The human eye is very capable of detecting very small deviations if these deviations are very large in percentage terms.

So if you want to tape on “zero” mm, you have to do this very, very precisely because every deviation from “zero” mm is very large in percentage and therefore very well visible to the human eye.

Small deviations compared to 1 mm are also small in percentage and therefore not visible to the human eye.

The human eye will therefore appreciate the end result at 1 mm much more than at “zero”” mm.