c/drywall-installers

Old timer Frank told me to wet the edges of my mud pan to stop ridge buildup, now I feel dumb for fighting dirt for 8 years

I finally tried his trick after watching him do a perfect corner with zero cleanup, and now my pan stays clean for a full bucket instead of me scraping it every 15 minutes - anyone else got a hack they ignored forever that actually works?

My brand new drywall lift just locked up on me mid-job

I was hanging 12 foot boards on a ceiling in a basement in Evanston yesterday and the crank handle froze halfway up. Tried oiling it, smacking it, everything. Ended up having to lower the whole sheet down carefully with a buddy and finish the ceiling by hand. What a pain, my back is killing me today. Has anyone else had a drywall lift just quit on them like that?

Rant: tried mesh tape vs paper tape on a ceiling repair last week and one was way better

I did a 4x4 foot patch on a ceiling in a 1980s house in Phoenix last Tuesday. Used paper tape on one side and mesh on the other to finally settle the debate. The mesh gave me no end of trouble with bubbles and it just would not sit flat no matter how much mud I used. Paper tape went on smooth and I only needed two coats to get it perfect. Has anyone else switched back to paper after trying mesh for a while?

Saw a crew in Denver using mesh tape on inside corners and cringed hard

I was walking through a job site in Denver last Tuesday and noticed a crew putting up mesh tape on all their inside corners. That's just asking for trouble in my book. Paper tape gives way better mud adhesion and won't bubble up like mesh does on those tight angles. I've been doing this 12 years and tried mesh once back in 2018, had to cut half of it out after a month. Who else still swears by paper tape for corners or am I just old school?

That old timer on the Hanging crew in Nashville taught me something I still think about

I was working a big commercial job in Nashville, like a 5 story office building, and this one older guy maybe 70 years old was on the finishing crew. He saw me struggling with a really bad outside corner and just walked over. He didn't say much at first, just pointed at how I was holding my knife and told me I was fighting the mud instead of letting it work for me. Then he showed me this trick where you use a slightly wider knife and pull the mud from the corner outwards, not the other way around. He said it took him 20 years to figure that out and he wished someone had told him earlier. I tried it right there and the corner came out smooth as glass on the first pass. That one tip saved me so much sanding time on that whole job.

PSA: don't buy the cheap pre-mixed joint compound in the bucket

I wasted $40 on a five gallon bucket of that bargain brand last month and ended up with crumbly mud that wouldn't sand smooth, so has anyone else run into this with store brand compounds?

That $80 auto-taper I grabbed off Amazon... what a joke.

Jammed up on the third joint. Mud leaked everywhere. Took me longer to clean it than to do the whole room by hand. Anybody find a taper that actually works for under $200?

Found a hack for mudding inside corners that saved my back

I got tired of leaning over to tape inside corners and getting mud everywhere. So I tried a 6 inch taping knife with a rounded corner tip that I filed down myself. It let me get a smoother finish without the extra passes. Anyone else mess with their tools like this or am I just cheap?

PSA: I stopped using a trowel for inside corners 6 months ago.

Switched to a corner box on a job in Denver and my angles are tighter, way less sanding, anyone else find the mud cake method overrated?

Took me 4 hours to fix a corner bead that I could have done in 20 minutes

Spent all afternoon fighting a bowed corner bead on a ceiling soffit in a remodel yesterday before I realized the metal stud behind it was just slightly twisted. Anyone else ever waste a whole day on one dumb thing like that?

Why does nobody talk about mudding corners before they're taped

I keep running into jobs where someone's already slapped mud on inside corners before even laying the tape down. Last week I was finishing a basement in Elmwood and had to scrape out three rooms worth of dried mud because it was all bubbled underneath. The tape won't lay flat if you don't have a clean dry corner to start with. Has anyone else dealt with this or is it just the guys I'm following around?

I finally learned why my mud was bubbling after that job at a Denver condo complex

Was finishing a ceiling repair at this fancy condo in LoDo a couple weeks ago and kept getting these tiny bubbles no matter what I did. Drove me nuts for like an hour until the building super walks in and goes "you using the cold tap water?" Yeah turns out that building has super soft water from a whole building system and it was causing the compound to trap air. Switched to bottled water from my truck and it laid down perfect. Anyone else hit weird water issues on high rise jobs?

Saw the difference mudding with a 6-inch vs 10-inch knife on a ceiling repair

I had this small water stain on my ceiling from a leaky pipe last winter, maybe 2 feet across. First time i tried using my 6-inch knife to feather it out and it looked like garbage, real lumpy. Let it dry, sanded it down, and tried again with a 10-inch knife. Night and day difference. The bigger knife spreads the mud so much more even, especially on a ceiling where gravity is working against you. Took maybe 3 coats total with the 10-inch versus the 5 i was doing before. Has anyone else noticed how much easier ceilings go with a wider knife or am i just late to this?

Pro tip: Switched from mesh tape to paper on inside corners and never going back

Used to swear by mesh tape for every corner because it was faster to slap on. Last week on a job in Cleveland I had 3 inside corners crack at the crease after the first coat - looked terrible. Old foreman walked over, handed me a roll of paper tape, and said "fold it, don't stretch it." Tried his method on the next room and the corners came out clean and flat with zero bubbles. No more redo's for me. Any of you guys had better luck with one tape type over the other for ceilings?

That vacuum bag trick for dust control I laughed at actually works

Saw a guy on youtube saying to tape a cheap shop vac bag over your mud pan to catch dust while sanding, thought it was total bs. Tried it on a 1500 sq ft basement job in Denver last month and holy crap it caught probably 80% of the dust before it hit the air. Anyone else tried this or got a better way to keep the fine stuff from getting everywhere?

Overheard a guy on site say he uses a 12 inch knife for all his taping

I always thought thats way too big but he said it cut his time on flats in half. Tried it on my last job in a basement and honestly my finish was smoother too. Has anyone else tried going bigger than normal?

Tried the 4-inch knife for inside corners after doing them with a 6-inch for years

Dropped a 12ft sheet on my foot last Tuesday at a job in Phoenix

I was working alone on a ceiling in this new build near Surprise and the sheet caught an air pocket. Landed right on my steel toes but still crushed my arch pretty bad. How do you guys handle big sheets solo without wrecking yourself?

Vent: A ceiling job in an old Phoenix house turned into a mess last month.

We were hanging new 5/8 inch board on a kitchen ceiling, a standard job. The homeowner said the place was built in the 1950s. When we started screwing into the joists, half of them felt soft and gave way. Turns out, termites had been eating them for years and it was never fixed. We had to stop everything, prop the ceiling with temporary braces, and tell the guy he needed a framer before we could go on. Has anyone else run into hidden damage like this in an old house, and how do you handle the extra cost talk with the client?

A retired installer in Cleveland showed me his old hawk and trowel.

He said, 'We mixed our own mud and never used a pan.' Has anyone else learned a trick from someone who's been out of the trade for a while?

Found out the average new house has over 8,000 square feet of drywall from a builder's blog, blew my mind

Just finished a job in a renovated 1920s bungalow in Sacramento and the old plaster was a nightmare.

The walls had this thick, crumbly horsehair plaster that made cutting new drywall to fit the uneven studs a real headache. We ended up using a lot of shims and a wider knife for the first coat to bridge some serious gaps. What's your go-to method for dealing with those super uneven old plaster walls when you're hanging new board?

Just realized why my corner beads kept popping on old plaster walls

I overheard a guy at the supply house say he always uses 1 1/4 inch screws instead of 1 inch when securing beads over old lath. Tried it on a job in a 1950s bungalow last week and it made a huge difference, no more movement. Anyone have a different fix for this?

My uncle told me to always pre-fill the factory edges and I thought he was nuts.

He said it for years, but I figured it was just an old-timer thing that wasted time. Then I did a whole house in Tacoma last fall and skipped it, like I always did. Two weeks later, I had a perfect line of nail pops right along every single factory edge. He was right, and I had to go back and fix every wall. Anyone else get burned by skipping that step?

Hot take: I keep seeing new guys skip the pre-fill step on tapered joints.

Heard a guy at the supply house in Tacoma say he just tapes right over them to save time. That's a call-back waiting to happen. Anyone else notice corners cracking faster when you skip that step?