Beginner's Guide To Drywall Taping | A to Z

in this video we are going to get rid of all of the confusion regarding how to install and tape drywall we're going to show you every joint every process what order you do it in and it's really basic and simple these are my tools okay i have a hawk i have a four inch knife a six inch knife and a four by ten trowel this is a flat trowel it's not curved it doesn't have a warp in it okay that's it that's what i use and i use paper tape this is the foundation for all of the driver work now you might have seen one of our videos before when i shared tips and tricks and i got a few good hacks and i'm going to use one of them right now because in order to film this video i've got to fix my corner i love expansion foam in conjunction with drywall for me this is standard practice okay so whenever i've got a nasty corner like this i'll just fill it with this foam let it set up for about half an hour and then i'm ready there we go so before we get started let's just go back in time a little bit to the invention of drywall drywall was generally used once we got into like 1940s okay like the first building code we had in canada was 1941 it was a national building code we didn't even get an ontario building code until 1975. back then they used panels that were 16 inches wide by four feet and they would install these panels on the wall and they would traditionally coat it with plaster and they use drywall as a replacement for lath whether it be metal or the wood okay it's sped up production and so everything in north america is designed for speed we build houses in 90 days so what we've got is we've transformed this over season so now we're putting on four by eight four by ten four by twelve foot sheets now the drywall can come 54 inches which is four feet and a half so you can use two pieces and get a nine foot ceiling with one joint like a lot of different changes have been happening but the basics of drywall is this this stuff is designed to go over top of the wood so that wood can expand and contract in behind it and this will remain constant okay that's it it doesn't expand and contract even when it gets soaking wet it doesn't get any bigger so what we have to do is we have to use a tape paper tape to go and get rid of this gap so that this gap doesn't turn into a crack that's the foundation for everything we're doing here anywhere there's a joint we have to put tape in it so it doesn't crack now paper tape comes on a roll depending on the size of the project and get as many feet as you need and it comes pre-seamed okay you see the crease and so there's an um the back side of the tape is where the crease folds into a corner and the front side of the tape is where the dent is okay so when you're taping you got to know where the front the back is you just fold it in half and you can pre-form a corner that's it nice and simple right okay now that we got that the back of the tape goes against the wall in every situation whether it's in a corner or on the flat okay only other thing we can need to do before we get started is understand um what type of joints we have to do with and we'll talk about the mud and how to create the proper mud now joints are simple in our little demonstration here i've got a ceiling joint and a wall joint which are basically identical in their application i have this joint here which is called a factory finish tapered joint okay now drywall comes flat and the last two inches it has a bevel so here's a piece of drywall it's half inch thick okay and when i put the two ends together you can see that the paper finishes over the top and it's thinner at the joint there is a ridge right here and right here okay if you were look at it it goes like this and it goes like this paper ends the next piece goes like this and then it lifts up our job is to put a piece of paper on the gap and then fill from bevel to bevel the drywall compound to create a smooth surface all right that's it piece of cake now over here this is where the sheet is cut and this is called a butt joint it means that it's exactly half an inch on both sides there is no well to fill so in this case we've got the paper ends with the factory cut and now we're adding paper which is creating a thicker piece of wool and now our job in this environment is to finish it over such a wide space that the fact that we added tape and there's a bump it's minimized we're actually going to stretch the mud all the way out here and create this wide band of mud okay and the point here is we're stretching it out really thin it's not about adding more material it's about keeping it as thin as possible and stretching it out so that when light hits that wall you can't see the shadow caused by the by the thickness going to thin if you just do a one quick section it's going to cast a shadow it'll be obvious and ugly and so drywall taping adding the mud is the art of it's kind of like an illusion it's the art of illusion we're creating the illusion that this is a flat smooth surface when in truth these joints can be flat but these ones are always going to have a bump this is why drywallers whenever possible will avoid a butt joint at all costs and a lot of buildings actually design the room so that they don't have walls longer than 12 feet because this is difficult to contend with so if you have a basement you're going to finish which is a real common project for homeowners you're going to get butt joints and so if you don't know how to do this properly you're going to be in trouble this video is going to save your bacon now when you have a joint like this you also don't want to have the same joint above okay you always want to stagger your joints at least two studs three four feet is always best okay try to stag your studs whenever possible other than that there's not much more to talk about except for when you're drywalling make sure you've got five screws one in the middle and then split the difference and then one at the top okay that'll keep it secure that's the proper installation now let's just jump into how to mix your mud because if you don't mix your mud properly you're going to fail the number one mistake that most people make when they're mud is it comes pre-mixed it's all-purpose it's pre-mixed it's ready to go and they take that mud and they stick it on the wall and they put on their tape they come down the next morning and the tape has got all these bubbles in it because there wasn't enough moisture in the mud to actually make good contact okay you cannot just take the mud out of the bucket or out of the box and apply it on the wall you've got to add water so let's show you that process okay you're gonna need a couple special tools for that and it's worth buying i'm telling you right now okay because thin mud can be applied thin that thick stuff that comes in the pail or the box can only be applied thick without the right amount of moisture you can't get rid of all of that the pits and the bumps that you're going to see in the mud let's just show you an example where i'm from in canada we got a lot of our mud in a box i know that a lot of the a lot of regions they sell it in pails and that's convenient because you just take the lid off but if you get it in a box like me you got to squeeze it out of the bag okay and here's how we do it that's the process right there just run it off the side this is the only clean method i know that works here we go okay so i'm just going to demonstrate here i'm going to set aside some of this mud and not mix it in now i'm going to fix this up we'll put both on the wall and show you the difference all right so let's go through the process one box of mud 500 milliliters of water um i took a little bit out so we're just gonna pour that right in there all right this is my formula this is what i like if you do things differently and feel free to comment but this is how i like mine this is for first coat mud it's for embedding the tape into the compound it needs moisture but it doesn't have to be the creamiest substance in the world at this point as we go on through the process we're going to make the mud a little thinner for each coat okay but for the first coat this is all we need one bottle of water it's easy to remember it's a great formula [Music] and while we're at it listen this is gonna be everything you need to know right in this one video okay so you don't have to keep hunting and searching all day long so this is a slow mixer and it's a big blade you can get all these tools at your local home depot or lowe's we're just going to keep on mixing until the moisture is evenly distributed and it comes out nice and creamy okay there we go okay when you're done make sure you go clean this off uh this does not taste good so don't even try it as a side note always make sure your tools are clean okay let's take this is this this stuff from right out of the box no mixing okay we'll just do this remember this is how not to do it you put your tape in and then you're gonna go like this now working clean i'm just going to show you real quick it looks like you've got a good bond here right but what you're not going to see in that demonstration is that the lack of moisture in here watch what happens to it it ends up in the drywall okay and it it gets sucked out of that mud so fast that the paper goes dry and the mud goes dry before it has a chance to bond and this is what's going to be a problem in about an hour from now this would all go to bubbles okay and this is why you can't do that in contrast this is the whipped mud okay this is the one we just mixed this has got a much higher moisture content on it okay and to your untrained eye it probably looks pretty much the same but this has moisture and the moisture is what makes this whole process work so if there's no moisture there's no bond all right now step one when you're taping is do all of your tapered joints and you just take let's just show the system you're going to work your mud to the middle of the hock now the hawk has a handle it's very comfortable you're holding it like this all day all right i use the hock and not the bucket the bucket you got to hold like this okay it's very stressful on the arm this is incredibly easy now you just basically are cutting a piece okay work it off the edge and you load your knife like that okay and then you're applying it sideways and then you flatten it out all right here's one motion just cut it off and apply it spread it all right and we're gonna do the whole i'm not as good going the wrong direction generally speaking if your environment is clean you can just put this on the floor and work with it okay they also sell something you can put on your hip but for most homeowners i don't suggest buying it it's just another tool and it takes some time to get used to now you can pre-measure and then cut this if you want i know lots of people to do that you want to get right up to the corner okay and you want to put your tape on remember the back side goes behind this is the indent in the crease and you want to just lightly bed this nice and easy like and i'll show you why we don't want to push too hard because we don't want to push the mud behind here out the mud behind there is what's going to bond everything together and we already didn't put too much in there so we don't have a problem okay so now we're just putting a little bit of pressure and we're setting the tape done okay now we want to clean joint we're going to just clean off the excess drywall is all about working clean less is more all right that's part of my system for homeowners i'm going to recommend you the following and that is take another off the side over the surface and wet it one more time by putting a little bit of mud on the on the front this will wet the tape and make sure that it doesn't dry out while it's setting up this is how you avoid the bubbles right there and as long as you wet the tape after you're done setting it you're going to be good to go that joint's done yay the reason we want to do this joint first is because remember that tapered dip here if you do the corners first then your paper tape is gonna have to follow that dip as well throw a little extra mud here and effectively fill up that dip so now it's a flush surface so when i put my corner tape on it doesn't have to bend it makes life a little bit easier all right okay so once we get all of our tapered joints done then we can move on to the inside corners all right and we'll do the butt joint last but i'll start at the ceiling all right for the next section here we're going to do the inside corners this is something you want to you want to pull this paper off and measure early so i'm looking at this i have eight feet i have eight feet and a couple more feet so i need 18 feet and i just go that's four that's eight that's 12. that's 16. that's 20. that's plenty now we can get this out of the way just put my fingers through it and i'll preform all my corner all right you can do this really quick by the way there we go now we're ready because i'm going to be working on a ladder i'll just take this bead and shove it in the mud first thing of course is you want to put i'm just going to get this corner done first and then we'll talk about the joint okay now for everybody that's out there watching this video who's seen all the folks online who do commercial work for living for their professional drywall papers most of the folks are creating content out there work in new host construction or on commercial sites now on commercial sites the standard for production is very low and same with new home construction so they get away with cheating they're not using their hand tools um generally speaking they're using machines like a banjo to create the tape joint or they have a bazooka and it does the tape and mud and the inside corners at the same time all these machines they don't bed the tape as well as if you do it by hand okay and they are rather expensive and they take a lot of time to clean they even have an automatic feeder that goes on the side of a pail that the tape goes through so the mud gets supplied to both sides of the tape so that while you're putting it on the wall it's already soaking wet okay and these are great inventions for making it faster because a professional taper has to tape a whole house in one day like there's no mercy there right they got to be flying but you don't want to go and spend five to ten thousand dollars on tools you want a hawk a couple of 20 knives all right maybe splurge on your 4x10 and get a stainless steel blade like i do you're only at 100 for all your tools all right you're going to want to buy a little bench to work from you don't want a stepladder so for less than 200 bucks maybe the the slow mixing drill now you're at 300 okay for 300 bucks you can have everything that i've got here and you can do a higher quality finish because this knife to system that i'm showing you on the drywall scale out of five this is a level four finish that i'm doing the only way to go to level five is when we're done with a level four you then take a bigger trowel like a four by twelve and you skim coat the whole wall that's more like a plaster finish okay so what i'm showing you here is a superior better quality finish than what you're going to get even with all the machines so just wanted to let you know when you're watching everybody on the internet showing all of their cool tools and their stilts and everything else that stuff is not cheap and it's not for the homeowner so it's not going to help you to watch them you're not going to learn anything from those machines all right here we go same thing i'm loading the same amount of mud okay this is first coat this is just tape and coat it's for the corners and again we're working off the side of the blade all right now this takes a little bit of practice to get used to how much pressure because you're going to start with a little bit of pressure and then you're going to add a little bit more and then you're going to want to flatten this out just a little bit okay and realize there's not enough mud there come back again there we go all right now remember this is a tapered joint this is factory finish where it's dipped so feel free to be a little bit liberal here with the mud you can always get the excess off later and for the sake of argument i'm going to show you the first four feet only okay weird i had some dirt in my mud there this way all right there we go we're going to take our paper now i'm going to just hold this against it and tear it square off that becomes garbage remember it's pre-folded so i'm going to just set it in the corner right here and i'm going to use my knife to hold it in place while i set this over here okay now paper tape as it gets wet starts to stretch so there is an element of time here that you have to concern yourself with now you want to just bed it with gentle pressure so you don't slide it in the mud okay there we go but your pressure should be at this point on the wall don't go in the corner just hold your knife flat to the wall so that you're removing excess mud out of the scenario but you're remember because it's tapered it still leaves everything in behind that tape it's still full of mud back there okay now if it makes your life easier you can just leave it folded like that and then continue on or you can cut it all right and you're allowed to finish there's enough gap that needs to be filled you can come back and then we can actually join over top of this all right so here's the other option now we can finish the rest of this joint and we'll just go about three inch overlap okay okay here we go and we'll just pick up where we left off one of the advantages of working with the bench is my bench is uh five feet long and i plus my reach that gives me the ability to cover you know eight to ten linear feet of wall without moving which is awesome okay now we grab our hawk again we're going to start from the middle and work back to where we were one of the rules of drywall folks when you have something finished don't start from here and then work work back towards where you're finished if you get in the habit of doing that when you get into the second and third coat it'll make all the world of difference to you i think that pale is gonna end up screwing me over max okay all right while we're here on the bench i got to do with my scrolls right so watch this off the side of the knife again the side of the knife is the most valuable part of the tool right and then you just come back down on it now great opportunity learning moment you see that wrinkle listen to this all right the screw is raised now as a homeowner you're going to find this is going to happen on occasion have a screwdriver in your back pocket quarter turn problem's gone okay piece of cake if you work with a screwdriver you don't have to run around check all your screw holes first oh like that there's a click well whatever just get to work when you identify the problem pull this out quarter turn the threads are thick enough that should solve your problem every time if it's really bad give it a half a turn okay so now you see this little click okay you can probably get away with it because it was didn't have a ripple of mud but what you're not going to get is a proper fill you want to see this you don't want to see the screw head right even this if you see the screw head what's going to happen is as you go down your do all your mudding and then when you sand your screw head's going to show up again so make sure it's a divot that's filled and you don't want to see your screw okay and then you won't have a problem when you go sand this hock when it's in good condition also makes an excellent lid all right now before you get off your bench or move it along the wall i'm going to do the same thing that we did to this first joint okay we're going to take a little extra mud and we're going to apply it to the ceiling and then also to the wall side of that tape joint we want it wet okay you're going to just take it off the bottom here's how we're going to cheat just a little bit to save you a step we're going to start from the corner okay and we're going to apply the mud to the tape as the first fill coat all right so a little bit of pressure and then gently over here and then pressure on the wall smooth out that edge okay done it takes a bit of practice so if you want to cheat you can do it like this you can also take it flat and carve out anything that's on that wall anything that's extra then you can come back and you can flatten it in the corner the secret with the knife of course is you take a look at this edge it is a 90 degree edge so when you're taping if you keep this perpendicular to the corner you'll always get nice clean lines okay if you open it up like this you're gonna leave mud on the wall let me show you here if i leave it open okay like this like i'm on an angle then i'm gonna get this reaction and i'm gonna have mud sitting there all right and this when it dries is a problem because now it's in the way and then tomorrow you're gonna come by and you're gonna be chiseling away at it that's crazy just get it all cleaned off keep it nice and perfect and if the same thing if you if you open it too far the other way you get a lousy line okay just practice being square there we are oh i actually need to put a little bit of mud there i've actually cleaned it all off doing all the demonstration okay there we go this is a perfect corner all right we also want to put a fill on here i've got that bump here so i'm going to need a little bit extra mud all right i'm going to clean the edge by pressure and then i'm going to always work back to where it's finished nice and square all right okay good now that is basically the second coat on that side of the tape done at the same time as your tape coat day two because we're always going to give this 24 hours to dry and if you're in a basement sometimes add a fan you want air moving to help dry it out day two we'll come back and we're going to actually show you the next step in the process but it's on the same bead we just stretch it out with my bigger knife okay don't cheat you don't want to have your drywall paper being dry because dry paper is bubbled paper all right here we go now my ceiling line is finished now here's the joke because i'm working in a studio this is the only eight foot wall section i've got to work on so i can't come back tomorrow and show you some other joint that i did right that didn't blister you're actually going to be able to watch through this whole video if my technique works how clean it is what the quality of the finish is and if any of this blisters i'm gonna guarantee you right now it's not gonna happen okay okay um now i'm going to do the inside corner same technique as the ceiling you just got to hold your hand a little differently right because you're not working over your head once all of our inside corners are done then we'll do the butt joint and then we'll do outside corners all right so now this is all set up okay it's nice and good to go so we're just going to trim it off and if you haven't seen the video where i show you all my tips and tricks this is almost like a hack it's such a good hack i've incorporated it as part of my normal routine now so i don't consider it a hack anymore just trimming this back okay and this just creates a perfect backer now traditionally in the world of drywall we'd have to take another bucket and we would mix up a compound and it's got a hardener in it and it's fast setting and we would fill all these gaps and cracks let it harden and then we would tape the joint that's a real frustration so when you're ready to do your job just grab a can of that expansion foam walk around and fill all the really nasty gaps all right it actually glues the drywall to the drywall and it gets a much better consistency and it's also a backer so you don't have to use a whole lot of mud now i don't have to mix another compound and then clean up all my tools again and clean out another pail it saves me a lot of time all right guys so now i've got my tape in my hand i've got my hawk i've got my mud i'm ready to do the inside corner very similar again we're working off the side all right and in this particular case we're actually working up against our finished painted wall which is a great opportunity to learn something here this cleans out real easy so you got to make real darn sure if you're adding a wall to your space that's painted to leave the mud there okay this is a perfect time to make sure that you've got nice creamy mud and you put a lot of it on not a time to be cheap okay this is the only place where you're gonna risk bubbling using my system using any system actually i think the wall surfaces are a bit of a bugger okay now i'm going to only go halfway down that's fine i'm going to set my hawk down for a minute and i'm going to find the edge of my tape and this time we're going to do something a little bit different cut it on a 45 degree angle okay like this and i'm going to push the tip right into the ceiling all right and then i'm going to use the corner to set it in get it out of my way here we go i'm going to set the tape on the regular drywall side first because this one will slide like crazy so once i get this set embedded i know it's not going to slide around too much i'm going to then come upwards motion and i'm trying not to use too much pressure here i just want to set it i got pressure on this knife here if i have any ridge like this i'm going to add a little bit more pressure okay it means there's too much mud in behind there if it's raised off the wall that's good i'm pleased with that same thing we want to add moisture whenever you're working and you get lines there's dirt get rid of it it's your enemy it's not normal shouldn't be here clean mud will not make lines like that we're going to also add moisture on this side but we're going to do the same as we did in the ceiling i like to look at this way the first coat when i'm mudding i do all my left sides and all my ceiling corners okay this is the left side i'm actually going to add mud here i'm going to try to make it a perfect edge up in the ceiling here too if need be i can go like this and then finish this way there we go all right clean the outside edge that's all there is to it here we go and we're just going to hold the tape up here from while i set some extra mud in place there we go let's get this all finished off and we're ready to go now okay we're going to set this in the corner all right now we're going to take the knife and i'm going to put some downward pressure just tighten everything up now we're going to embed the tape again on the drywall side not the painted side all right there we go now that foam created enough of a backer there that with the mud it makes a really nice corner there's just no problem at all here and again we're going to go somewhat gentle here so we don't squeeze out too much mud real quick note whenever you get down to the bottom make sure that your joints are nice and tight okay make sure that you don't have extra mud here a lot of people leave extra mud down here keep everything nice and tight okay okay now same thing as before we gotta add moisture so it doesn't dry out back to where we finished and there we go now my hawk's starting to look like a bit of a mess right this is all good mud so every once in a while collect all the extra mud work it back into the middle if it's in one spot it won't dry out on you if it's all over the place it'll be a mess here we go we're just going to flatten this out i don't have quite enough on here yet until it's four inches wide there's not enough mud okay that's the width of the tool okay we're going to clean off the outside edge again with that pressure right now i'm going to trough the inside corner here and then i'm going to come back and flatten it to where i finished off before that is almost perfect there's a little bit too much mud here i'm gonna do one more one more run there okay when it's perfectly clean and sharp then you're done okay now we get to do the butt joint all right just a quick note if you're doing your own drywall work and then your own taping on butt joints when you get these screws don't sink them all the way in this is a factory edge you always want to measure from factory edge from the stud to a wall and then cut the piece and install it in the middle of the stud and then another factory edge going up against it and then when you put your screw in leave it a little proud until the other piece is in and then you sink both screws at the same time because what happens is the drywall does explode a little bit from the pressure here all right you want to take the back side of your four inch knife it should have a metal end you're buying the wrong tool okay and just wanna vent that back in take a second to dent that back in that is a raised piece of drywall okay so here's our butt joint right piece of drywall piece of drywall okay and you got two screws that are flush or are deeper in but the drywall itself has now been bumped out okay that becomes the new height that you have to fill all this wall plus the tape and the mud okay it gets extreme if you just dent it nice and flat then you've got nice and flat then you're adding paper with a little bit of mud now you're not adding much thickness okay this is a disaster you're going to use a half a box amount of what bunt joint one butt joint if you don't dent that sometimes it's a little things that make all the difference butt joints are a little bit different you can work off the side of the knife if you want to or you can just go in nice and flat i prefer in this case just to go flat depending on your skill level and how much pressure you use working from the top down i'll just demonstrate it okay your mud will just squeeze out the sides and if it's too thin it'll make a hell of a mess if you're always working from the bottom and lifting it up okay you aren't going to have that same problem all right if you're using a butt joint on a ceiling work like this with your hawk underneath your knife because it's going to be dripping everywhere and you can catch it mix it back in and still good mud right we need about four feet or so now comes that big question to go flush or to go over all right it's a it's a it's a controversy in the industry i like to join the tape because we didn't use too much mud and i still have a gap that i have to fill so it's not going to cause me any issue i'm just setting that on there nice and gentle like okay now i'm going to start from the middle work my way up here to that joint and just clean out the extra mud okay and then same thing going down if i start here i'm going to get a big wrinkle okay and now i get down here and i'm going to just scoop it okay again we're down to the ground make sure all the extra mud is gone don't leave it don't leave it like this like i see all the time because everybody will we'll tape here nice right and then they'll stand nice and then leave this big chunk here when you go to put your baseboards on that always looks like hell so get out of there all right clean it up here we go now the science and the butt joint and the why it's so difficult you're not even going to see during the taping process this is actually quite easy all you got to do is get it wet and then clean it all off all right this is not like the inside corners we do not want to leave any mud here when you add extra mud you're actually um yeah you're building it out now those inside corners build out is fine but on a butt joint you don't want it you want it as clean as you can so put the mud on let it get wet take it off okay the less you have here when you're done the better off you are all right [Music] so now this joint is finished with the tape and the bedding that now becomes about as thick as it's ever going to be and it's still not flat while we're down here we'll take care of our other screws done now the only thing left is to do the outside corner let's jump right into that now drywall corner beads all right they come they should be just less than 90 degrees okay and the tip is bulbous it's like pronounced on purpose all right so if it comes 90 degrees you're gonna have to physically close it a little bit i usually like to put a little bit of bend in anyway because i find that the angle that they're giving me from the factory it's good for certain machines but most homeowners could use a little bit of help because there's experience involved in putting a corner bead on you lose a little bit help by having a less of an angle okay i'll show you why eight foot bead fits an eight foot wall all right this drywall is installed tight and cut flush to the stud and this dry overlaps it it's designed not to have a void in the corner now when we put this on that's it done now there are tons of tools and machines out there that make this a quick easy process but for most homeowners we're going to rely on the good old fashioned using a drill and screws okay the drywall screw has a very thin head okay and it's designed for this particular case and put this over the corner what you want to do instead of pushing from this side and starting okay you want to push the corner straight in all right and you want it balanced and you have two rows of holes this row and this outer row the outer row is actually designed to go into the wood and where you put your fastener the middle row of holes is simply designed to act like lath so when you put the mud on it can go in behind that hole and bond to it okay so you don't start here because it's not enough mud in that area yet we're going to screw above here where the wall is a half an inch thick and we're going to screw exactly on the other side okay and you want to drive that screw so that it's not making any contact you can test with the drywall knife if it don't hear that that clicking noise then you're safe that's nice and clean perfect these corners you got to be careful because you can twist them you can start installing offline remember the goal here is to have a corner installed perfectly so that when you put your knife on it all right there's a gap to fill from this point back to here all right it's easy to fill gaps with drywall mud it's hard to deal with it if it's turned around a corner and everything's already flush or you're touching both sides of the corner bead at the same time you can't fill that that's really tricky so take time start in the middle get your angle perfect and then just go up every 16 inches to two feet make sure you're screwing on the outside row not too tight to begin with now you can drive it in oh why am i missing wood very strange what the heck if you don't have wood remember wood can have knots and holes and corners missing just go down to the next hole okay guys i think it's important to note here that the amount of work it takes to do all the taping depending on the size of your project you might be finished your day or two days or three days before you get all the tape joints done that's a lot of work from here moving forward the second and third coats those applications go real quickly okay so if you don't have enough time in the day the next step could be done the next day and the reason for that is when we apply the corner beads we're going to actually use a sheetrock 45 now in the united states this is a usg 45 okay it's just a powder with a hardening compound in it the 45 number relates to the workability of this if you mix this powder with cold water and the water is not from a well i have 45 minutes to work with it i'm on a well so i'm gonna have maybe 10 or 15. generally speaking there's more salt content in the well and other things going on there that really speed up the chemical process which is what's happening it's a chemical reaction we're going to throw a little bit of powder into the water here mix away with our slow mixer and our blade again you also only want to make this when it's actually time to do all your corners because of the setup time and the fact you want to mix it right you don't want to mix this every day because you have to make a certain amount of material when you're using these tools you only about a third of a bag no matter what as a minimum the only other option is to mix it on the hawk and you can do that we've got a video for that as well if you're just doing a patch or repair we can put the link up here down the video description but if you're mixing a bunch to work with have their whole job ready for this compound this is still soup i need a whole bunch more there we go okay now here's the texture i've got here it's a little bit on the runny side but i'm doing this on purpose for me because i know being on a well the whiter this mud is when i start the longer i'm going to have time to work with it okay as long as it stays on the hock i can work with it it's not running off it should be okay now this is a little bit runny but even even at that you can see how fast it's setting up i'm going to take just a little bit of material and the reason i'm using 45 is because the hardener in this it creates a really healthy environment here for impact resistance and breakage okay regular compound just isn't strong enough to resist the occasional ding into the corner if you paint with a nice acrylic paint you'll have plenty of strength in the wall now because we're using this compound and you're going to have totally different result in the city than what you're watching in this video okay we're just doing a fill so what i'm doing i'm intentionally leaving about three or four inches off of the trowel overhang so that i'm not spreading it all the way into the middle of the wall okay [Applause] because i'm going from a raise put to a point here if i shorten it up i'm making sure that i can then travel over top of it and i still have a gap to fill alright this is just for making the corner strong we don't want too much material on the wall here okay now i'm gonna get my ladder i can't overemphasize how fast this is setting up i wouldn't be surprised if in five minutes the pail has gone rock hard because what happens is when the chemical reaction starts it creates heat and the more heat the faster it sets so being in a contained area like a pail versus the hawk this sets up slower than it does in the pail all right so if it starts to give you any issues quick get it out of the pail and on your hock before it's garbage wow when you're done just take the side of the knife off the front okay clean all that off again that'll be something that you're gonna have to fight with later there we go that's that let it set up and then we'll be ready to put another coat over top because it's a small section we did all the tape joints and we did the corners and the first application in one day um generally speaking do the corners on day two or on a separate day set the corners fill coat with the hardener and then go back to your regular mud okay and that'll be the second coat i'm not going to tell you what to do on what day because the size of the project determines what's available but just remember don't put fresh mud compound over wet mud always that thing set up the hardener once it's hard even if it's damp you can still add another coat different rule but for the regular compound make sure it's completely dry before you put another coat on there because you're going to be transferring moisture again and you can create bubbling on day two if you're not dry on before you start your next coat we're gonna let this dry and as soon as it's ready we'll show you the second coat okay so welcome back to second coat welcome back i left you didn't we got second coat mud going on today now i had lots of mud left over i could have just added a little bit of water two things one it's white and on camera showing white mud applying over white mud with white walls it actually is really difficult so i grabbed a box of bait this is beige compound all-purpose drywall compound it's not my favorite mud in the world but i think it's going to do better at giving you the ability to see the application and see the difference what's going on okay so we're going to use that and the other thing is i mix that other mud in uh the little bmr white pail and i noticed when i was doing my taping there was little tiny chunks of plastic from the mixing process in the mud for betting the tape and for doing the first coat it's not an issue but for doing the second and third coats it's definitely an issue right so i went back to the store and i picked up this pail and it's important because this pail does not it's a harder plastic i guess when i mix in these pails i don't get those little chunks okay so consider this don't use the orange pails or the blue pills i thought the bmr pail was going to be stronger plastic apparently it's not that's fine if anybody knows why or where on this bucket i can look to identify the strength of the bucket so it doesn't happen i'd love to know i've heard seen comments like that before i looked at the pail at the store today i couldn't identify any marker on here that says this one's better than this one anyway these are the problems we run into right and sometimes it's a little secrets like that that make the difference between a successful job or a job where you've got scratches and you just don't know why and you're going crazy now you know why now same thing and turn it over and and there we go okay now second coat mud right so the rule for first coat was one bottle of water for a box of mud yay but for second and third coat you want to go one and a half bottles okay you're going even creamier now there we go that is the whole science all right now i'm going to set this down and mix it [Music] okay here we go all right now put that in the water beige drywall mud why use it right it's really nice if you're doing your prime check um it's nice sometimes as a as a last coat if you're using white mud if you're inexperienced and you just want to be able to say okay um the second code's done when it's all beige that sometimes is helpful right it really there's a couple of different all-purpose drywall compounds out there and it comes down to personal preference more than anything and how well you mix it to determine if you're going to like what you got so we're going to jump in a second coat today so second coat let's just walk through it we're using a six inch knife and on the left and the ceilings we had a four now we're gonna go back with a six okay do the same joint a second time that's what we do so what we've got here is we've got we've got a um a corner bead okay and then mud and now i'm going to stretch it out from here to here and basically apply it on an angle we're like filling like this so instead of 90 degrees we're going to be at like 87 by the time we're done okay and trust me the reason we do this is because we want to have one flat piece of mud here all right and we can't do that without adding a little bit of compound on the on the joint that's all oh yeah that's nice and silky smooth all right and at this point it should still stay on the hook yep now this if you have your mud and it's so runny that it's falling off the hock you've uh you put too much water in it okay just so you know you should have control like it's going to slide right but you should have control hold it level you'll be fine so i just put the mud back in the bail because i don't want to teach any bad habits right the goal of this is to teach you only things that are going to make you successful so take your six inch knife before you start applying your next coat and you're looking for things like this okay little ridges if there's a ridge you get rid of it okay if there's any bumps in your corner get rid of them all right any obstructions just run your blade over your surface that you're about to mud to make sure that all the bumps are gone okay [Music] the purpose of this exercise is two things one while you're doing this you're going to know if that corner is still soft sometimes the surface can look dry but just beneath the surface is still wet and so if you go like this with a knife you'll gouge it out and be like oh okay so maybe your installation job isn't perfect maybe you need more ventilation you gotta add a fan maybe need a heat source close to the ground in basements it's quite often the case okay so doing this initial test will tell you are you ready for the second coat b get all the junks and chunks if you're holding your mud while you do this you're going to get dirt in your mud right so don't do that clean your area and then when you're ready to get the mud on then you grab your mud so the first thing i like to do is do all my corners of course start at the top work your way down it's the second coat on the same surface as the first coat now this is less is more okay but you have to have enough on the inside corner that's what i'm focused on so same rule put your knife in the corner clean it out and then one more pass that keeps this side of the paper nice and clean okay there we go nothing really to it we're not even using a lot of compound here what we're doing is we're guaranteeing that any imperfections in the surface and the feathered edge here has had an ability to get really clean and it's six inches wide okay this is the other thing if you don't have a nice straight line here you haven't done your job all right now you want to go over with pressure make sure that edge is feathered we're going like this right you want to come in here clean and then pull that's it okay that's it now that that side of that corner is finished you aren't going to need any more applications for a level three finish for level four finish which is just a little bit nicer when everything is finished you'll come back and you'll do one more tight skim coat over everything when it's dry but for now we're fine we're going to leave that it's just a little bit of mud we're very confident it'll dry overnight because we didn't put too much on the wall okay now we're going to just finish this process and of course i'm just applying it right now it's easier to take it off if you put too much on than it is to apply the right amount of mud all right so be generous okay here we go and use your hawk to catch all the drippings right keep the floor clean all right so now we're gonna clean the edge back to where we came from okay we're gonna clean the inside corner moving always moving back towards you came from where it's nice and clean okay and there's a little bit extra mud here so i'm gonna just start in the middle so that i can control this this is the one last final pass all right there we go there we go all right now same thing on this vertical i'm going to put in a little bit more mud than i need make sure i get that edge okay i'm going to do the pressure on the outside edge first okay and i'm gonna clean the inside corner yeah i'm gonna go up here set that in the corner there we go these corners are the trickiest part of the job okay and they might require you after you've done all your second coats because remember the next two days we're going to do the opposite side four inch and then six inch the opposite side four inch six inch and if it's not perfect and it needs a little touch up it's a great time to do that so don't be panicking about if it's perfect what you want is a perfect feathered edge and you want a perfect clean corner that's the goal for now okay don't sit here trying to go whoa i see a little ridge here be nice to fix that nah wait until it's dry anytime you want to fix something wait till it's dry all right now look at that that's a hot mess that's where i had the tape sitting earlier while we're here do all your screws okay the fact that you see a brown circle means that when the mud dried it shrunk and it left a void that had to be filled okay this is the key the next time we come back with the mud this will have dried and the compound will be darker than the dried compound and we'll do it again and if you see a circle guess what maybe the void is big enough that you need another coat until it stops doing that you're still filling up filling a void so keep on doing your screws until you're not filling a void there is no such thing as two passes guaranteed or three passes guaranteed all depends on how how deep you sunk your screws how much pressure you're using on your blade how much water is in your mud so many variables right um there we go now we're going to finish the corner and then we're going to deal with the the horizontal and the butt joints all right this will be interesting today's shout out goes to andrew andrew built himself a shed based on our shed video uh you're one of many andrew but congratulations you did an awesome job remember guys if you want to see your picture in our videos just follow us on our social media instagram or facebook and go ahead and submit them let us know where you live so we can give your town a shout out too cheers there is a method to doing the rest of these joints this is going to be one of these situations where i'm going to be like do as i say not as i do it is always best to do all the horizontals one day then the verticals another day not on the same day because whatever you do in a different direction will mess up the other direction so for simplicity i'm going to show you how to fill all right this is the deal we're going to cut some material off like that we're going to put our knife on the wall on an angle so that it's pushing across and up at the same time that gives us control okay you see that and yet we still get voids because remember we're filling a bowl basically all right now i'm gonna demonstrate to you how much that's pressed pretty tight because it's a straight edge okay there's no need to have a mountain of mud here we're just filling from this side to this side okay you don't have to go like this if you leave all these pucks here you've actually created a hump on the wall and that's no good that's okay but it's still a lot of mud that's a great second coat no need to go any more than that i can't possibly dig out the mud when i'm using a straight knife okay i know this is offensive to a lot of people because it's like well there's not a lot of mud there you don't need a lot all right the next coat is going to be the the last coat once this dries you're going to be like amazed how little mud you actually need this is where this becomes an interesting situation because remember this is tape on top of drywall this is the most important joint that you need to learn or just always renovate your house into small rooms here we go so for this one we're going to do a different technique this one i held the the trowel this way okay and for this technique i'm going to roll it up on my hand not like this okay see that's like a 90. i'm going to roll it up and i'm going to use this edge and tape from the bottom up i'm going to lift the mud onto the wall so i'm going to i'm rolled on my hand i'm going to do a i'm going to cut it off that way and then start down in the bottom i'm going to put a mud on the wall now i'm applying with pressure you'll see i'm right on that tape line i don't want to make it any thicker than that tape okay so the way we actually do this is not by going up the middle because that's as thick as what we're going to take a knife we're going to go to the side because we're going to fill from here to here we want to leave that mud on the wall and over time you'll get good at knowing how much to cut off and you want to basically leave it all right there now that we have this this is just like a fill coat we are establishing the depth of the mud from the drywall to the paper in the middle of that joint okay feel free to go and clean it off a little bit if you want to but make sure every void like that is filled and extend it past the butt past your horizontal so remember this is a butt joint it's two sheets stuck together and then the paper is sitting proud right that's why we call it a butt joint it's butted up to each other now you've got your mud on the wall and you're pretty you know you put a good chunk of mud there you go up the middle with pressure okay and what you're gonna get is these little ridges all right and that's fine here comes jeff the artist okay here we go we got a piece of drywall and we have another piece of drywall right and they're installed flat and then what we do is we put compound and then a piece of tape right here that's the new height of the wall when we're putting our mud on now we're filling from this tape to here that line and we're filling from the tape to here and we're creating this slight curve okay you've put too much mud on there now and now we came across with a flat trowel right up the middle of that joint and we've got these little ridges that are showing right here and right here okay the goal of this joint now the next time let's assume that's the 10 inches is to stretch it out from here to even further but we need a buildup coat to do that the build up coat can't be so full of mud that it goes all pucky it can't be holding a lot of air all right it has to it has to be wet enough that you can you can stretch it out and fill it without making a mess you want to see this tape if you see the tape through the mud that means there's such a thin level of mud there that you're not making this wall even thicker okay don't be the guy that goes oh i don't want to see my tape i'm gonna make the wall that thick because now you're going to have to stretch it from here to here you're going to need a 20-foot trowel to get that flat it ain't going to happen you're just going to have bumps in your wall less is more okay add mud on the sides to fill the same space with the mud and the tape are taking up in the middle after the first coat so all we're doing we're flattening that out to establish the height of our finish that's it the next coat we're going to come back and we're going to go a little bit differently to stretch this out and make this joint invisible but the secret is less mud seeing the tape means that you're not adding too much material okay let's move on so when it comes to the outside corner we have the same process right take your knife we're gonna clean the corner and what did that mean get rid of all the bumps okay so ridges like this trowel ridges come across this way get rid of that bump it's in the way and then you take your trowel and you see all that dust falling off okay and then run on the edge of the metal both directions clean same thing because i'm going to pull from the bottom first i got my knife how i hold it but from the bottom i don't want to go this way it's actually a very awkward way to do things roll it over okay so normal roll it over so we're going to cut and we're going to start at the bottom and we're adding a thin coat here okay what we're doing is just changing the texture and filling where it isn't filled right when you use a quick dry compound it still shrinks when it dries so now we're basically going back and reestablishing that fill line all right piece of cake now we're going to hold it normal come from the top down all right always moving the direction to your finished mud okay you'll do less damage to what the work you've already done if you always do that if i try to travel from the finish mud and clean this way watch what happens no matter how careful i am oh dirt in the mud and that's the damage i did one little chunk maddening see i got a line here where i did that you don't want to have lines in your your work so always start and move towards the finished product and when you're lifting off you can roll okay clean clean clean clean always cleaning your work as you go okay get down to the bottom and go across the bottom and get rid of all that extra mud sitting there this is the stuff that makes the finished carpentry so frustrating big chunks of mud at the bottom mud guys are always filling up the holes cut out by the drywallers and then the electricians always have to go and find their boxes and hammer the mud out and then the finished carpenter guys i've always got to chisel the mud off now and down by where the trim goes if everybody would just work clean like this then you wouldn't be driving everybody else in the industry nuts right one of the reasons why everybody has like a love-hate relationship for the other trades because everybody has a way of doing things that's faster but is causes somebody else a headache so when you're working on your own job and you're doing your own renovations you're the next trade right so don't do that to yourself learn how to work clean so that you won't be driving yourself crazy with those mistakes there we go that's it we leave it to dry now that's the whole second coat so next time i'm in the studio i'll finish off the rest of this video which will be right about now uh it's day three taping now okay so first day we did the paper tape embedded all the tape installed the corner bead right second day and we did the first the four inch tape on the inside corners on the ceiling and the inside joints right the four inch knife second day we did the six inch fill on the inside corners of the same corner and i did a light fill on the horizontals but i focused my mainly on the butt joint and getting that built up so it's day three and a four day taping process so day three and day four we're going to do with the other corners the right sides and the bottoms off the ceiling do the four and then the six on the fourth day as far as all the walls are concerned on day three you want to finish all your horizontals do not do butts and horizontals on the same day for second coats okay it'll confuse everything so we're going to do just the horizontal on the last day we're going to do the butt joint if you have a serious problem butt joint like a serious problem child down here and you need an extra day to work it out and feather it out a little bit more a little taller that's fine take it but don't try to get ahead with a problem joint and mix these two you're going to end up just adding so much mud to the wall and having this huge mass here that you're going to have to sand it'll drive you crazy okay so adjust the horizontal today and the inside corners let's just run through this okay so in this situation same thing as before take time with your travel you want to just run the area looking for ridges get rid of them okay if you have a ridge and you don't knock it off that means you have to fill with more mud right and we're trying to do everything we can do so that we can do less is more all right run it right off the edge now we're going to start near the outside corner and the reason for that is because we're combining this i'm putting all my material here and i'm going to run right off the edge now i'm going to run pretty tight you can see here that's the tape when you do less is more approach you always see the tape through the mud and that's a good thing because then you know what you're doing i can see the ridge that's the tapered edge of the drywall i don't need mud here down i don't need mud from here up i need to fill this okay so by doing this nice and tight i get a really good look okay i almost want to take it all off pressure on the bottom part clean it pressure on the top part to clean it and then right down the middle okay that's done all right i'm not doing this perfect and then coming back for three hours of sanding every foot no no no no okay pressure on the bottom pressure on the top and then clean it out it should be flawless at this point because you're making your your mud milky smooth right you're not confusing the joints and getting trial lines going in different directions apply it pressure on the bottom pressure on the top feel free to come back with an empty travel here tight through the middle i had a line even further i'll stretch it out okay now i'm going to start right in the corner about two inches in because this is finished that's the six inch i don't need mud here start dry pressure on the bottom pressure on the top pressure in the middle we'll start here on the on the dry part right here we didn't need any mud here we don't have to have nothing that's done that joint's finished i know when you when you watch tv and you look at any building shows or you watch a lot of these guys on the they're using the machines their lines are perfectly horizontal everything is so sharp to look at but they're using expensive equipment that you're not going to buy for your job that you can't rent for your job and quite frankly it doesn't do as good a job that's right i'll be the first one to say it those drywall machines are for speed not quality the tape doesn't get pressed into the mud it's set in the mud it's not bedded okay there's just nothing about that that does a nice job the corners are always atrocious i'm going to take a look at a brand new house get a flashlight go up into the corners and take a good look it'll be atrocious the way i'm teaching you to do this your work is going to be absolutely flawless that's the difference you don't be able to spend time doing this kind of work to get a really lousy result you want to be able to spend time doing this work so you can have your friends and family over and go check this out i learned that on youtube less is more we're going to do side of the knife just like the first first time we were in there taping right this time though we've got a nice flat edge we can run our knife at guns against there's actually too much mud here because i see it pucking see it pitted so i'm gonna put more pressure and i can put more pressure until that pitting is gone as long as it's pitted i'm not happy it needs the much too thick okay there we go so now i've got a nice edge okay i got a nice fill that's ready for the six inch blade on the next day okay you don't always have to come off the side of your knife all right there's pressure on this side now to get that extra mud off all right you're going to use the edge nice and flat you're going to just scoop out all the extra material and leave room to flatten it out without getting that ridge of snowplow ridge it's not perfect here needs material need some material okay needs material back to where it's what's already done nice i always work towards what's finished okay there we go wow that's so sexy okay loving it because i would be remiss if i didn't finish this i'm just gonna run through the rest of this and get the rest of the four inch work done and that's day three we don't even touch the outside corner on day three okay because that's where all the horizontals bump into and like just like the bud joints we don't want to do anything vertical on the same day as the horizontal on the second coat all right so leave it alone all you got to do is this you're going to go down in the basement people are going to think you're hard at work because taping is really quiet you can be watching the game they could think you're taping all day long one more thing yep you guessed it day three gotta do the screws because who knows maybe they're good maybe they're bad can't tell when it's dry that's how you tell okay there's hardly any mark there there's hardly any pit that's actually really nice remember the thicker the mud that's left on the wall the darker the tone so you can tell if you were filling a screw hole that's that's not bad at all i think three coats is gonna be plenty for that now here's another pro tip guys all right remember you mix this mud and it's going to last three days for this project alone so take your knife clean off all the mud off the edges you don't need a plastic lid or anything like that okay and you might want to use a sponge even depending how much of a mess you made how much mud is left when you get down near the bottom sponging off the edges isn't a bad idea take your mud and throw it in there this is all clean remember we are working not getting dirt in our mud all this stuff on the edges consider dirt now okay so you're gonna scrape all that off get a nice clean hot all right run it under the sink and get that wet the next day before you use it [Music] that is dirt it goes on the floor in your pail you want to massage the top make it all nice and flat okay have a drink and then share with your friends okay just a little bit of water here's why we're actually going to create a a miniature environment here that's our lid all right now what's going on in here is it's not going to seal perfect there's going to be a little bit of air movement and you're going to have a dry atmosphere out here and a wet atmosphere in there and so by putting a little bit of water on top you're going to help prevent that mud from going to that nice creamy consistency and turning into something thick over three days without a proper water seal on the top it'll go thick and you're gonna try to finish your job with the thickest mud you've got it's not gonna work well at the end of each day add a little bit of water and it slowly soaks into the rest of the mud and makes it even creamier so then the next coat that you do is creamier the next coat you do is creamier by the time you get to the end of the week you've got the creamiest mud you could possibly have hoped for you didn't even have to put in the machine or use the blade once you've got it started don't touch it except to add a little bit of water okay that'll make it perfect every time it's day four which means for you it's your last day of doing taping this is awesome because after day you just go one more day of letting it dry you're not putting a lot of mud on and then you're ready to start sanding and priming right which is awesome so the other option is after day four you could always take one more day walk around with your hawk in a four inch or a six inch and just look for anything that's just not perfect if you want to be as picky as that go right ahead you could also take advantage of the fact that once you've got it done up day four you're one step away from a level five finish of your drywall which would mean just finish skim coating the whole wall with a thin layer of drywall mud okay that's a brand new beast but what i'm showing you is level four finish new home construction is a level three at best in most situations new home construction is actually a lower quality finish than commercial building applications because there's built with so much speed involved and what they're trying to deliver you is a product that looks good from a distance and they use flat paint as a finish everything is a trick of the eye to make you think everything looks nice but an experienced drywall taper can walk into a brand new home that's been done with the machines and they're in and out of there in just a few minutes and you can walk into any corner and just go about this close it'll blow your mind go ahead i dare you the next time you're in somebody's house that was just made there's a track house of any kind just go look close in the drywall corners you'll be surprised how nasty the work actually is you couldn't possibly paint a wall as an accent wall with the work done that bad you first have to do is fix all your corners before you can paint an accent wall it's that horrible i'm telling you right now all right if you don't believe me we're gonna do an accent wall at my daughter's house that video is coming up soon it's gonna blow you away i mean i'm a pretty decent painter i couldn't i can't cut a line in her house to save my life we're gonna have to finish pinning the rest of the house to fix all that mess all right here we go we're just going to go and double check right this is our opportunity to get rid of extra things same as before only now we're working on a different line you can almost just listen for what you hear there's ridges right you can see them obviously these ridges boom boom boom i'm not even sure what i did to screw that up but i'm going to have to clean them this way before i put my second coat on [Applause] i did not clean that as well as i should have sometimes when i'm making videos i rush my own work and i shouldn't do this all right here we go again the hawk is on the lid i'm not going to get any dirt in my mud now my surface is looking pretty darn pretty now so you all know today i'm going to use this exchange second coat on the bottom of my joints and on my right sides okay i'm probably going to do my screw holes one more time just for the heck of it and i'll probably do a six inch wide just to make sure that i don't have any ridges and reduce sanding but down here the horizontal finish is vertical this is my butt joint this needs a little work i've got a nice ripple here okay that's not a problem but check this out okay right here that's where we set the depth if we can go back to uh day two we put a little mud on each side and then we skimmed it up the middle to try to almost expose the paper okay and now we're the depth of the mud from here to here is established from here to here is established now what we want to do is we want to get just a little thinnest coat here and stretch it out to here okay so let's just do the six inch first and then we're to jump into the butt coat i'll show you how to finish this off make it look like you've been doing this all your life first order of business just take a little mud because on this joint right there i see a little mark okay and i'm not going to just ignore it now we're doing bottoms and right sides which means i'm doing both sides of this and that's a little tricky right because we try not to do too many of these situations where they intersect okay and remember when you go to finish most important part here is that this knife has a 90 degree edge on the corner by my thumb if i pull like this it cleans and runs right off the edge of the ceiling and it gives a perfect 90 degree edge okay if i pull like this then i'm gouging it and i'm leaving material on the ceiling and then i got to clean the ceiling and then i'm gouging it and you're always making a mess so how you hold the tool is just as if not more important than the process you take so put on your mud clean your edge okay pressure on the bottom set your tool perfect 90. if you got to go slow go slow but that all right is it perfect corner we're just going to do that over and over and over again until we have all of this all taken care of all right now we don't need a lot of mud for this line here we're just going to get it delivered in place okay so same rule clean it bottom pressure and you can hold the knife any way you want as long as it's 90 to the ceiling okay now in this situation i don't have enough material to snow plow in so add a little more go back 90 degrees make sure it's filled perfect that's the way it is you know you don't never move forward until you're happy with what you've just done right if i fix one side i'm going to wreck the other side right so we're going to go six inch pull this way and that fixed it okay here we go [Music] let's just put on a little bit of money here let's even it out a little bit with some pressure let's run our knife off the side off the inside corner it just reduces the amount of sanding you've got to do with that sanding block okay 90 degrees not perfect it's just the way it is and that's what sanding's work if we uh if we made it perfect you wouldn't have to sand except the drywall compound when it dries because the water is evaporating it has a certain texture to it it's different than a smooth wall so you always have to sand just to change the texture even if it's to take your sponge and just do one quick pass it's still necessary or it'll show up in the paint afterwards okay all right so let me finish that all this off and then we'll jump into the rest of it okay so we're back to our outside corner you know there's one thing about this corner that is going to look a lot different than most of your houses and that is this when you look at it with the bright light you're not going to see a dent two inches in and all the little holes from the paper from the corner beads showing up that's what happens when you use those machine mud tools and you're in a hurry they only use two coats they don't use the hardener and then over time your corner beads start to like translate the fact that they were done with with water and only got two coats so sketchy how they get away with that but here we go this is your last coat on the corner bead the first one was 45 the second one was with the regular drywall compound okay now i'm going to recommend start with a clean knife go right to the corner you're going to have situations like this pull it nice and tight this is not about leaving material on there this is about making it as smooth as perfect as possible okay every little bit of mud that you can get off of there you take off all right that is the best way to finish an outside corner and then do that and then whip it on the ground don't get dirt in your mud same thing from the bottom right and get it on first okay and then we're going to use some pressure get it all off the whole goal here is to just get rid of all the imperfections so that when you're sanding you're just changing the texture of the wall and you're not removing a bunch of mud okay you really want to be able to just do a nice light pass now we're at a point here now where it's time to go do that butt joint so you can also see that as a part of day four i also hit my screw holes right now the screw holes themselves are hardly showing up anymore which means they're actually filled which is good now butt joint we're going to use this curl the trowel over technique and work from the bottom up take some good chunk of mud we're going to start in the middle this time remember the second coat we filled on the left side filled on the right side and then cleaned up the middle this time we're going to start up the middle and we're not going to use a whole lot of mud i'm just going to something to start with we're going to take off a little bit more and go to the right and then another shot and go another trowel over same thing clean up here and then whatever's left on that child now we've got lots of mud here now it's time to make it all nice and smooth okay so when we did the second coat we did clean the outside and then we did the middle last now we're going to start with the middle and you know where your tape line is because you can see the mud at the bottom so the middle of the trowel you want to put in the middle of that tape line and you want to try to put your pressure right on your first knuckle just go straight up okay don't deviate there's your paper tape you should still see it in your joint that means you're not making this wall any thicker than necessary now we've done the middle now i'm going to take my corner i'm going to try to keep the pressure on this lead edge where the paper tape is and just smooth now i'm coming over here now i'm going to try to go even pressure in a perfect world i don't have this ridge but now i'm just going to flatten that out okay really light pressure i'm actually liking this it's okay if you got a little bit of a line this is what sanding is for here we go now i obviously didn't have enough mud on the wall when i first started right so let's try that again pressure forces on the paper joint and come over here medium pressure up the middle same thing happened here don't have enough mud it's going to happen to you so don't be surprised now medium pressure straight across the blade okay i've got a little bit area here to fill so let's just start this one all over again okay paper tape pressure medium pressure up the middle if you're not sure if you have using enough pressure you either have it perfectly flat or you've got a little bit of a ridge or you've got these lines these lines mean there wasn't enough pressure to smooth the mud out so i'm going to go up again one more time with a little bit more pressure here we go now i'm going just on the drywall pressure trying to clean it one more light pressure just to smooth it out here we go now this looks pretty darn good to me all right it's not perfect it's not going to be perfect okay it's so difficult to learn how to get the pressure exactly the way you want it every butt joint in every wall is different because it has wooden sticks and they have bows and bends okay don't be hard on yourself here remember if you have a groove you have a problem but if you have a ridge you have something that can sand off that's okay all right don't worry about coming all the way up above this line because this was already perfect all right this is about as finished as you're gonna get it it's time to walk away and let it dry so that is how you get a level four finish in drywall it's also a level four on my jeffy meter skill level irony right so here we go remember it's about having the right amount of mud in the right place when you're finished that when you sand you have a perfect finished job okay if you sand and you're disappointed or you make mistakes or you make scratches in the mud this is all going to happen to everybody what you do if you're not happy with the performance of your work is you sand it and then prime it with the pva drywall primer you let that dry overnight and what it does is it hardens up okay and now you can come back with more mud and you can do all the touch-ups and repairs okay knowing that your sanding block is never going to sand past the paint and you can sand everything else smooth because whatever you're not happy with is going to be a groove or a scratch or an indent and you can fill that and then sand it smooth back to the paint and get a nice perfect finish even if you've got to do that sand and mud and sand in mud two three four times who cares right it's a learning curve so if you don't get it perfect the first time it's okay just sand in mud you'd be fine all right use the primer as a backstop to the work that is completed to the level of the satisfaction and then finish repairing from there now we're going to put some video links in the description for how to sand how to prime and how to do a proper prime check the secret to good drywall work is use more lighting than the drywall will ever be exposed to in normal conditions right so that you can find more mistakes than anybody else will ever be able to see in the future and that way when you move your furniture in and you turn the regular lights on it's going to be great because you use 50 million watts of power to find your mistakes right that's the secret so thanks for joining us in this tutorial now you know how to do level four look forward to seeing the next video in the series of how we do level five in the jeffer meter which is going to be doing tile work all right we've got a video coming soon make sure you subscribe to the channel and hit the bell for notifications so you don't miss that okay because once you've learned level five you've got all the skills you need to remodel any room in your house yeah that's awesome you're awesome you're your best contractor click this video right here you're going to learn how to do an amazing prime check i got all my tricks for you to help you through that cheers until next time

Channel: Home RenoVision DIY

Views: 1,317,610

Keywords: homerenovision, renovision, jeff thorman, homerenovisiondiy, how to tape drywall, corner beads, inside corners, outside corners, how to sand drywall, how to mix drywall mud, best type of drywall mud, diy drywall installation, basement finishing, how to apply drywall mud, drywall tips and tricks, drywall hawk, drywall tools, how to mud and tape like a pro, prime check, how to finish my drywall job, putty knife, how to install drywall, tapered joints, butt joints

Id: naBal346_9c

Length: 93min 16sec (5596 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 12 2022