Best Way to tape and coat a Butt Joint in Drywall (#2012)

I want to show you how to do a bot joint all by itself because that's one of the hardest things to do while mudding and taping now I purposely made this butt joint kind of messed up the way it is just to show you because sometimes when you're doing a rental that's how it ends up being right it's not perfect like a brand-new drywall job so to start off I'll just probably cut go and cut off the paper let's flare it out so I'll just cut some of that off yeah so I'll cut off some of this loose paper just do that remove any loose parts so we'll do that then what I'll do is I'll get up my mug ready it's fairly running in starting to roll on my 4-inch putty knife and my tape and reel but what I like to do is just dent in the edges so that it they're not flared out at all so just take the butt end of this putty knife just dent that right in as long as your screws are all suck and there's enough of them just like so then we can go ahead and just tape it and I just like to put them on on my putty knife go sideways if I go up and down like this it'll bubble off the left and right side and onto the floor so if you just go sideways with your putty knife just get a nice coat on there and you want to fill that gap up okay so we got got that filled up now to make it easier for you you can always pre fill that so just fill it with just straight wipe it up wipe it straight flat off let that dry then you can do your taping it's a lot easier to tape if you have the time if you don't do it this way it's a little harder but saves you a step now the rule that I use is when I'm putting mud on before my tape I don't want to see through the mud like right here the tape would not bond to the drywall there'd be air pockets in behind and you'll see that forever so you don't want any blisters or air pockets so I'll just do this get it evenly on there's just a couple little spots I'll just go over you want enough mud and behind there so that bonds to the drywall there's no air pockets be also don't want it built up too much because the more it's built out the harder it is to fan it so you don't see that butt joint now I'll just cut my tape to length I'll go into the bevel let's blow here then I'll just basically well this tape always bends one way cuz it's made for inside angles let's just make sure that you always install it so that at the the back side or the bent part is into the joint if you do it the other way there's always this little seam that sticks out a little bit it's hard to cover that so just put it on this way find Center attach it down here you can move it up and down with your mud being fairly fluid then it can squish out properly if it's too stiff it's hard to get flat you'll get waves in it so just keep it fluid like it you see in the video here and what I'm gonna do is I'll just basically try to hold it prevent it from moving I'm not gonna push very hard just gonna kind of get it on there get it straight hey now since that was gapped and I never prefilled it sometimes what I'll do is I'll just run my finger dent it in just slightly that way I know it's not gonna bubble out cuz like I said before it's hard to get that to hide and if you and then you'd have to flare it on a mile so with that identified in a little bit now I'll just push a little bit harder work out any excess mud if you push too hard you'll squish all the mud oh and it won't stick to the drywall so the tape coat is now done so this will dry pull that tape in it's nice and flat but I didn't push too hard and now after that's cured up then I'll show you how to do the first and second coats okay so now that our tape is dry and the mud is dry as well we can just kind of tap it and just see if there's any air pockets and it feels really tight there's no big bubbles outward so that's good so now we can just do our first coat on this but going and I'm just gonna go in it scratch off any high spots with my putty knife just simply like that I try to prevent from sanding too much and now I can coat it now the theory with coating on a butt joint is they are one of the harder things to do all mudding I like to use a 12 inch trowel cuz they're rigid and straight and it keeps everything all my mud straight it doesn't bow and flex like a 12 inch knife would so these are more rigid and better first keeping everything flat so the theory behind a butt joint is if I put my trowel on here it's gonna cheater totter on the tape because it tapes obviously sticking out more what I want to do is I want to basically put my trial apply my mud right down the middle and just keep that flat so just kind of happy medium it so that I'm not one way or the other do one strip there then I'll do another strip on the left and the right and then I'll taper it from where this ends over to here somewhere now if I was just to go left and right from here this is always like a sharp V and it's really hard to hide that point by going flat and then tapering it back it blends it a lot better and you'll never see that sharp point of your of the butt joint so I've I've learned that the hard way just because over the years just trying to do going on the left and right side and just take so many coats try to hide it so use this method it works really well I'll show you how to apply it yeah let's just go ahead and do that so it's gonna take quite a bit of mud and I'll just keep blowing the mud getting it up the center now what I want to do is I want to hide this tape on my first coat my first coat basically have given me it'll do the majority of the fill and I want to get the shape that I want the second coat will give me it'll fill a little bit more as well add to the shape and keep it flat and then I'll probably do two more third and fourth just skinny now but if I don't hide this tape totally then my second coat has to be fairly heavy again because I want to hide this so that when I'm sandy and I don't sand through the mud and hit the tape because you'll see that to your paint job so just go and do this so just get your mud on your trowel like I said just go up the middle like that you'll see left and right side it's fairly heavy already that's fine that's normal and you can see the tape here but you can't see the tape here now this is just rough but just to show you what it looks like and I'll just keep going over it try to get the mud as the full width of your trowel and just keep pushing on it get it applied for now you can always err on the side of caution it's always easier to add more coats than it is to have a toothpick and try to sand it off so keep that in mind now sometimes at this point if you're too afraid to try to go left and right side all at the same time because it does take some technique you can just trial this out the way you want it let it dry out I'll even show you so I can see the tape here so I need a little bit more so I'll just apply a little bit there so that this way is if you want to just leave the swipe down the middle and do the left and right side later so I'm just gonna take a little bit off where it's thick and then I'll go over at once and that's that's actually really good because I can just just barely see the tape which is good because I know that I've covered it I'm not too thick but I'm not too shallow either so it's almost a perfect amount you want to be able to see it a little bit so you know that you're not caked up too much with mud if you want you can just leave it just like this let that dry it'll probably take a day then just knock off the high spots flare it out left and right side and then that would be officially your first coat then you got it you have a fairly flat in the middle tapers out you have the shape and it's filled most your drying times already taken care of then I'd like to say do three more coats on it but I'm gonna just load up some more mud and I'll show you how to do it all at once okay so I'm more mud here now probably what will happen is this when I apply it I'll probably have to hit the middle again just because I did take it down to where I wanted just to show you this one way but we'll just keep loading up the mud now this way basically want to get the mud on but I want to cut off and keep all my weight on the left side of the trowel and pretty much no weight on the right side so that I'm not digging out any of the mud that I've just applied here okay all the weights on the Left get the mud on there take that off cuz it'll be too wide so I'll just put a little bit more on my trial left I'm basically putting no weight on it hardly so that's good there now I can just move to the right side no just keep in mind this is only for a butt joint I'm not touching the flat here the horizontal one it's not part of the video but just so you know we're not even gonna think about that so you can see it is a mess right now but I am just gonna hit this middle I'm gonna take a little bit off the left not much basically just to get someone my trowel so I can apply it to the middle you can hear them the trowel on the right side putting all the weight on it so now I want to try to get it all correct and flat so I'll hit this middle it's not gonna take much weight okay that's looking really good I can see the tape just barely right there so I know I'm not too thick I don't want to put well all the weight on the left we'll just leave a ridge here so I'm just gonna try to do a nice even amount of weight but just barely barely any pressure obviously a little more on the left side to cut it down to zero you can read here I have a little bit of a ridge so I'm gonna probably hit that again just to get it flat I'll do this right side you'll always get a little bit of a ridge here in here and that's okay so just I'm gonna hit this middle and then I'll hit both sides again we should be good it is flat and as white as possible down the middle I'll end up there sometimes you have to know when to stop you're always gonna get a little Ridge like that just from the transition from going down to zero that's okay cuz you can just scratch those or just knock them off or sandals a little bit before your second coat so that's it for now that's basically doing it all at once saves you a whole set of drying time right in 24 hours to dry stuff that's this thick right so if you do to the middle weight of the day then did your side you know you're down two days so this just speeds up the process but I show you two options just so that you can do it either way you want whatever you're comfortable with so that's it for today we'll let that cure and we'll show you the second coat and then after that it's just skinning it so now that the first coat is fully dry we're ready to do the second coat now I usually just take my putty knife and just scrape off any high points I like to do that and prevent any sanding because one the sanding makes a mess and two the little fine particles get stuck under the drywall so you have to actually work your mod a bit harder just to kind of get rid of the dust and for the mud to stick so if if possible when going from first to second coat I just try to scratch it so please scratch there's a wave right here like a high point that I definitely have to get rid of so I can do that feel free to sand it if you want and then as I get closer to doing more like skin coats then I will sand more and scrape less [Music] we'll just hit any other high points [Music] there's a couple just ripple waves right here so I might actually just give those a quick light sad cuz if it's already rippled then the second coat oh just follow those ripples I don't want to do that okay adjust that off no I want to feel to make sure that there's this ridges you know fairly flat it's not then go ahead and sand it if you have to yeah I'm just gonna sound that I just want to be a little bit flatter like I said that's good hey so didn't take much minimal sanding now I'll show you how to do this well once you get the hang of it it's just like the first coat just not as heavy so you kind of push a little bit harder it's still gonna fill a fair bit and then your third and fourth coats will be mostly just skimming it out and filling any light low spots basically the same procedure just kind of get it on there give it fairly even but heavy as well I want to try to go a little bit wider than the previous cold just put a little more weight on the side there just gonna add a little bit to the bottom here kind of like so I think that's pretty decent now we'll just get it to where we want it cut the left side okay so that's good I'm gonna go just lightly again once once more try to get flattened out and even though and the mud just gets a lot smoother as well don't be you know it's better to have less money just do more coats so don't take it on too much now what I'm gonna do is I'm actually just gonna go really light and I want to try to flatten outwards humped up again and that will flatten off the wall there's a few ripples maybe come in and take a look it's just some waves but you know it's not gonna be perfect that's why you have two more coats there's some just a little ripple there and it's low there a little bit that's okay you kind of get the gist of it let that dry maybe do a light sand if you have to make sure to feel it get rid of any high spots do the same thing a little bit wider and then third and fourth coats you won't have to be so critical on metal left and right you can probably do three or four swipes randomly and it should be flat enough where it won't matter it won't to your totter anything so do that and you know a couple more coats you'll be ready for sanding so that's all going to show you for now and thanks for staying tuned

Channel: Kody Horvey

Views: 2,849,660

Rating: 4.2988596 out of 5

Keywords: best drywall, Drywall, How-to (Media Genre), how to drywall, drywall DIY, Do It Yourself (Website Category), Home Repair (Interest), Home Improvement (TV Genre), Renovation (Character Occupation), Kody Horvey, easy drywall, Red Deer (City/Town/Village), mudding drywall, taping drywall, mudding and taping drywall

Id: oLZmeHQlBKU

Length: 22min 36sec (1356 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 09 2013