Painting technique Cutting In: How to Build Speed and Accuracy

There is a saying among painting business owners… It goes “Roll for show, cut for dough.”

What that means is you make your money on the cut in not on the roll out! One of the most time consuming aspects of painting is cutting in… Until you get good and quick this is where most of your time will be eaten up.

One of your primary focuses should be to build up your speed and accuracy so it becomes second nature. Once you have done that with you dominant hand your next step is to learn to cut with your less dominant hand.

Here are a few suggestions for creating the muscle memory you need to build up your speed. As with any learned skill the more you practice the better you will get…

1. Brush manipulation – Take some time and get to know how to work the brush in your hand to get the bristles to do what you want them to do… Work on a scrap piece of drywall and move the brush around to get a feel of how the bristles move.
   
   

Get them to pull a razor sharp line, get them to work into a small area, practice working them around a soft edge… The point is get comfortable with the brush in your hand and how it feels to move the bristles around to get them to do what you want them to do.

2. When cutting against a straight edge such as a ceiling or trim always look a few inches past where your brush is because if you look at your brush or behind it you are going to get a choppy or wavy edge.
   
   

Much like driving a car, in order for it to track straight down the road you have to look ahead of you because if you look right at the hood you will swerve all over…

3. Don’t over saturate your brush… Only load the brush with enough paint to pull it 18-24 inches. Any more than that and you risk runs and drips any less then that you are wasting to much time dipping.
   
   

4. When you begin your cut always start 2-3 inches away from the edge you will be cutting into and work just enough paint up to the edge. You want to leave the majority of the paint well away from your final edge.
   
   

5. Finally, be sure to feather out your outside edge otherwise if you leave a hard edge it may show up as a “Band” around the room once you roll. So use a dry brush and feather out any spots where the paint may be to thick.
   
   

All of these tips will help you build up the speed and give you the professional look your customers demand. The more you paint the better you will get but when you are just getting started it is important to pay attention and learn the proper technique.

I get asked quite a bit if there are any specialty tools on the market that can help speed up the cutting in process… I don’t recommend any of these types of tools because once you have learned the skill of cutting in you will be able to do it much faster freehand than you could using any of the gimmick tools.

You will spend more time on set up and clean up using these types of tools…These specialty tools are mostly for the do it yourself home owner.

One last tip – Always carry a wet rag and 5 in 1 tool with you… I painted the walls in a law office which was trimmed with cherry woodwork… I had to be perfect with my cut in order to not get any on the trim.

About every 5-6 feet or so I would run my 5 in 1 with the wet rag down the trim edge which created a razor sharp edge. This allowed me to work quickly not worrying about having to be perfect.

I hope this helps!