The result was a plaster ceiling that could pass for drywall that did not require all the additional demo of removing plaster. A video of me skim coating is shown below.

• Major drywall taping pages will be cleaned up so the code does not cause problems with alternative browsers. These changes will consist of replacing excessive old code that I put in way back using FrontPage 2003 with up-to-date validated code that uses CSS and is error checked.
• A more comprehensive top menu so you may find this blog from any page.
• Videos converted to Flash format so users with Macs can view them. I did not realize this was a problem til some helpful site visitor pointed it out recently.

Hopefully, you find these changes helpful. It will take a bit of time to do all these changes, but I have already completed the drywallinfo home page and much of the the drywall taping joints page. As always, I welcome any input you have. Also, I will gladly help you with any drywall questions you have on your current drywall project. Contact me at mikesemail2000-drywall@yahoo.com .

Checking To Make Sure Screws Sit Below The Surface

My wife called me up from my office to watch Ask This Old House show how to finish  inside and outside drywall corners.

Outside Corners by Ask This Old House
First they showed outside corners. I was happy to see that they recommended using corner brace that was either all vinyl or all metal with no paper. (Paper-faced outside corner bead is to be avoided!) And I liked how they showed the application of coats. They left out several  seemingly-insignificant details however. First you must always, always, always scrape down the surface level before applying the next coat! A pimple-size bump of mud will give you a nice speed bump when you apply the next coat! It only takes a minute or two to knock off any such bumps before applying the next coat and it is essential to do. Another crucial step left out was to check to see that no fastening screws or nails were sticking up, as shown in the photo here – these will also mess up your job! My outside corner procedure includes these crucial steps.

Inside Corners by Ask This Old House
In their procedure, they recommended the paper-faced metal corner bead. Now this bead works nicely on the perfectly square sample mini-wall they demonstrated on but in reality, most walls are not so ideal. If your 8-ft long corner has even the slightest curve or bend in it, the nice perfect metal corner will not want to conform – the result is a pocket of air under part of the corner bead! Been there and done that! Instead, I prefer paper tape, which will follow the contour of the wall, using multiple steps to make a perfectly straight looking corner even if the corner you started out with was not straight, as shown in my inside  corner procedure.

Moral of the story: Don’t trust everything you see on TV!

• Use paper tape. NEVER mesh tape! Mesh is easily snagged by a taping knife, and that is very easy to do here since you are skimming down both sides of the corner.
• Do not use metal-backed corners that are mudded on. In theory, these seem like the perfect solution. But if you wall is not perfectly level, the metal will cause the corner to “pop off”, resulting in gaps in the mud underneath.
• Wet down the paper by very quickly passing through a bucket of water. Shake off the tape to remove most of the water. You don’t want the tape to be wet (and shred), just slightly dampened. A spray bottle would also work.
• Follow the procedure shown in the video below (there is audio to go with the diagram). Also, go to http://www.drywallinfo.com/insidecorners.html for detailed steps, photos, and videos.

Advantages of Hanging 8 ft Long Drywall

The one obvious advantage of 8 foot long pieces of drywall is the ability of a single person to pick up a full piece and position it in place. Twelve foot long pieces, unless you have unusual strength, are near impossible to handle alone. And if you have to fish a 12 foot long piece around corners and down stairs, it may be impossible.

You may transport 8 ft long drywall pieces within a closed full-sized SUV or truck bed or even in the back of many mini-vans (like a Grand Caravan). 12 ft pieces will require a fairly long trailer or require a delivery charge.

Another advantage of eight foot long pieces of drywall is that when sheets are placed vertically on walls, all seams lie within a recess. And this means you do not need to do the extra work involved in properly finishing a butt joint.

Advantages of Hanging 12 ft Long Drywall

One advantage of 12 ft long sheets is that you may cover an entire wall of a small room (less than 12 ft wide) with only two sheets fastened horizontally! And in general, if the width of an area is 12 feet or less, you can cover it with two sheets and a single recess joint running horizontally down the center.

12 foot long pieces of drywall, fastened horizontally will result in a stronger, more stable wall. I can vouch for this personally even though I use 8 ft sheets for nearly any remodeling job I do: When I hang drywall around windows or doors, I will usually hang the sheets horizontally so as to avoid a vertical seam at the edge of a door or window . This use of horizontal sheets around windows will add stability to the structure and reduce the seam cracks that occur at vertical seams during winter sub-zero temperatures. And, in fact, I have even removed drywall around windows where a vertical joint was cracking and replaced it with a horizontally orientated sheet.

12 ft sheets, hung horizontally will reduce the total amount of taping required.  For an 11-ft wide wall, only 11 total feet of taping is required vs. 16 ft of vertical taping for 8 ft sheets hung vertically. For a 13 foot wide wall,  one would have to use a total of four 12-ft sheets, cut down and staggered horizontally, resulting in 21 feet of taping, 8 ft of which would consist of butt joints. For 8 ft sheets hung vertically, there would be 24 ft of taping, all in recessed joints (no butt joints). So in both cases taping is reduced, but in the latter case, you have nearly as much taping and 8 ft of butt joints.

Conclusions

If you are a DIYer remodeling a wall or small room, 8 ft sheets are your best bet. In a remodel job, you lack the luxury of being able to freely move pieces through wide open spaces. Rather you must somehow snake a 12 ft piece around corners, furniture, etc and you will need help in moving the piece. Also, do you want to mess with a 12′ trailer or pay for delivery of 3 or 4 sheets of 12-ft long drywall? And even though 12 ft pieces offer more strength from being hung horizontally, you may still hang your 8 ft pieces horizontally around windows and doors where that strength is needed. In areas away from doors and windows, I have never noticed strength issues, like buckling or cracked seams, for vertically hung 8 ft sheets. Of course this recommendation is contingent on your local building codes.

If you are building new, I would recommend using the 12 ft sheets. You will most likely opt to have the drywall delivered anyway so that is not an issue. And you will probably not be doing this drywall job alone, at least I would not recommend it! You will probably want to rent or borrow a lift so that would help with the positioning of these longer, heavier, pieces. The 12 ft sheets will give you the best strength and will result in less taping. If you hire a taper, they will probably charge you no more for butt joints than recess joints so less taping could save you a little money as well.

Here are the Pros and Cons that I found:

Pros of the StudTHUD®

• The StudTHUD ® found studs very fast! The magnet was so powerful that it even pulled the stud finder toward the stud, with the StudTHUD® thumping against the wall when it located the stud.
• Upon locating the stud, this magnetic studfinder would usually stick to the wall due to the powerful force of the magnet.
• The Stud THUD ® has the same width as a normal building stud. Thus, it is almost impossible to miss the stud if you mark your stud midway on the stud finder. A traditional electronic stud finder can sometimes leave you guessing at times.
• The StudTHUD® was able to find a stud even under tile!
• No batteries! I came to appreciate this when I compared this product to my traditional electronic stud finder that did not work because it contained a corroded dead battery.
• The product was easy to use. In the video below, my son found studs with no special instructions except “slide the stud finder over the wall until the magnet finds a stud”.

Cons of the StudTHUD®

• The StudTHUD® needs metallic fasteners. Thus in the unlikely event that the drywall is only glued to studs underneath, you will not find the stud. This might also be a problem in a tight area that just happens to not have fasteners on the drywall in the area.

Conclusions

The StudTHUD® is a product that I think every homeowner would want to have, perhaps in addition to an electronic stud finder. I found it to be more precise and foolproof than the electronic stud finder I have, and it did not need batteries.  I look forward to seeing it on the market – it would make a nice stocking stuffer for just about anybody on my Christmas list. This product is going to be available late 2011 – for more info, see http://studthud.com/.

Watch my son find some studs in the video below. He found the first stud very quickly due to a little luck I think and it took a little more effort finding a stud under the tile. The video was unrehearsed and unedited.

Disclosure Statement: Other than being given this product for me to review, I have not been compensated in any way by the inventor of this product. The value of this product is approximately $10.

Here is a summary of Pros and Cons I observed:

Pros of the Wallboarder’s Buddy

• This wallboard cutting product is extremely easy to use. The video posted below was made only a day after I received the product. It is pretty self-evident how you use this product. Set your width, and run the guide down the side of the drywall piece scoring as you go.
• You don’t have to even use your tape measure to set up your cut. The guide has a precise measurement setting that locks in place. And it proved to be quite accurate. So if you need a 44″ wide sheet, simply cut off 4″ from one edge of the full 48″ wide sheet. The Wall Boarders Buddy, able to cut accurately on both sides, would be very handy for trimming a sheet from 96″ to 95″, a task that can be very time consuming.
• The pieces break off much cleaner than the usual score, bend, and break method due to the fact that you score the drywall on both the front and back of the sheet.
• This product is fast. Despite my inexperience with the Wallboarders Buddy, I was able to measure, score, and cut the piece in the video in about a minute and a half.

Cons of the Wallboarder’s Buddy

• When cutting smaller pieces, it is more difficult to keep the guide in place properly against the edge. In a trial piece cut before the one in the video, I cut a smaller piece and it was difficult to use the guide unless someone else held the piece. But this would not be an issue with a full sheet or even a half sheet since the weight of the bigger heavier piece would hold it in place as you cut.
• One must take care to keep the guide straight. I did not have too much difficulty, although on the smaller piece mentioned in the previous paragraph, the guide strayed from the edge and resulted in a non-straight cut. Keeping the guide on course would not be too difficult on a full size sheet I think.

Conclusions

This would be a great product for the person doing a lot of drywall cutting in the building of their home or a major remodel. I think that a professional drywall contractor would definitely want to have this product since time is money, and this product could for sure save some time. And how many times does one have to cut 96″ sheets down to 94″ or 95″ in a remodeling job? This product would save a lot of time. Given the fact that it took me, with my limited experience using the tool, only a minute and a half to measure and make the cut shown in the video below, I think a professional could easily cut pieces to size in a minute or less. For more information and videos on this product, see http://www.wallboardersbuddy.com.

Disclosure Statement: Other than being given this product for me to review, which I will donate away, I have not been compensated in any way by the producer of this product.

When repairing nail holes, nail pops in drywall, or pre-filling large gaps between sheets or in corners, you may use ordinary all-purpose joint compound. But, this compound takes a fairly long time to dry and also will shrink a fair amount, requiring additional coats (and time). A better way to do these types of jobs is to use a sand-able patching plaster (also known as spackle). There are many suitable products, but the one I tried and found to work well is DAP  Sandable Patching Plaster, available at most hardware or home stores. Just make sure the product states “sands easily”.

I used this product to fill in some nail holes and also I used it to fill in a dent in my drywall made from a door handle. In the case of the door handle dent I placed and excess amount of the  patching plaster (rather than skimming it level) just to see if it would sand off OK. It sanded just fine, almost as easily as joint compound. See photos below.

Another place you would want to use this type of compound would be to pre-fill in gaps between two sheets of drywall before you tape. Joint compound can take a long time to dry, and if the gaps are large, ordinary joint compound can even crack as it shrinks, requiring follow-up coats to account for shrinkage. A quick drying, low shrinkage sandable spackle or patching plaster prevents both of these problems!

I think my next update will be a video of me measuring the amount of weight required to bring this 23.5 pound weight down!