Ace Spray Paint Disaster

I have a good opinion of Ace hardware stores. How Ace handles today's incident (January 17, 2008) will be a test of that.

Yesterday I went to S&B Market in Manchester, California, where I frequently shop. Last week in the big wind storm that knocked out electricity on the north California coast I had the metal rain cap torn off the stove pipe from our woodstove. We rely almost exclusively on the woodstove for heat. I was in the middle of a project with a deadline, then the rain stopped, so it took me a while to find time to go shopping to deal with this problem.

I bought a rain cap and also a can a black rust-stop spray paint. This morning I took the paint and cap outside, planning to coat the entire thing before installing it. I tried to take the plastic cap off the spray paint, but could not. I looked for instructions, correctly figuring that they had designed some sort of cap that would not come off easily. The instructions said to insert a screwdriver and twist in this slot where the plastic cap met the can. It looks like a small strip of plastic is supposed to break, presumably allowing the cap to come off afterwards.

I took the can to a table in my office/workshop where I knew there was a screwdriver. I twisted as directed. Paint started spewing out. I thought it would stop, but no, so I made a dash to the door with it, my wife screaming as some of the paint came in her direction. I tossed the can outside where it spent itself.

While nothing was actually destroyed, paint got on a lot of stuff and dried before there was any possibility of cleaning. I can't get it off my hands, not even with alcohol. I suppose things will have to be scraped and sanded clean.

I called S&B and told the worker who took the call what happened. Of course he offered to replace the can of paint, but of course that is not fixing the damage. I asked him how to file a complaint. He said he would have his boss call, who was not in at the time.

Something that was not difficult in the past (I have used plenty of cans of spray paint over my lifetime) has been made difficult and dangerous by a stupid design. Every can with this design should be recalled. What if it had sprayed in my eyes? I could not find any place on Ace's corporate Web site to take a complaint about an Ace-brand product to the corporate level.

I don't know if this is the universal spray can design. It has been years since I last bought a can of stray paint. So back to cans that require brushes for me.

I'll edit this page as I find out whether Ace will make this right. The accompanying pictures show the extent of the damage.