Water Trays -- NEVER NEVER NEVER!
Of all the things that the wallcoverings industry has ever invented that didn't work....the water tray doesn't work the very best of all.
There are a number of problems with using these slop troughs:
1. Most wallcoverings are designed to have some soak time. Because of the design of these trays it is IMPOSSIBLE to get a even amount of soak time over the entire sheet (piece) of wallcovering. This can lead to part of the sheet expanding more then another part. Making it the very devil to hang. It gives me heartburn just trying to imagine the difficulty of installing a piece of wallcovering that has been unevenly soaked.
The reason why the wallcovering can't possibly be evenly wet and soaked is a simple natural force called gravity. If it wasn't for gravity the water tray would stand a better chance of working... Look at the diagram below. This is the way the water tray should work if the wallcovering was to be evenly soaked.
Now look at the next diagram....This is the way the water tray really works.
Gravity pulls the sheet on the bottom of the tray down. Causing some of the sheet to get more water than other parts of the sheet. Uneven soaking. Uneven expansion. (It comes out looking like the sheet below)
Heartburn.
That should be enough to keep you from using a water tray but there is also another reason:
2. Water trays wet the entire sheet of wallcovering...both the back (which is suppose to get wet) and the front...which isn't! This would be okay if the water in the tray was just plain water but it isn't. The minute you put the wallcovering -- with it's prepasted backing-- into the clean water the water gets paste in it. Paste which transfers itself to the front of your wallcoverings. Now you are in the time wasting chore of washing down the entire front of the wallcovering to get the dirty paste water off of it.
So what is the solution? Don't use the water tray ever...under any conditions.
Buy yourself a pad painter. Lay the wallcovering out on a table or counter and wet it with the pad painter that you have dipped in water. This also allows the use of prepasted activators.
Fold and book the wallcovering. Allow the wallcovering time to expand on the table and it won't try to expand on the wall.
Now you won't be hanging a sheet of wallcovering that is wider in some places then in others.
You also won't have that messy chore of washing down the entire face of the wallcovering.
Less heartburn. Less frustration.
Take that water tray outside and plant flowers in it.
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