Drywall. I am not any good at it.

I feel your pain!

I do marvel at those mud slinging pros.

Your taping knife size can save a ton of inexperience. When starting out, I had knives from 6” to 12” wide. The wider one can really help blend in a tape line or repair. Feathering out the edges is one of the most critical items, IMO.

I’m renovating my home office after some hurricane damages. Had to replace all sheet rock on the bottom 2 feet of walls and all ceiling sheet rock. A drywall lift (couple hundred bucks on Amazon) is a lifesaver for the ceiling. I did all the work myself and though I’ve done it before I’m no pro but it does look very very good. I also bought a texture hopper thing on Amazon ($50) and just sprayed texture on the ceilings and walls on Friday. It looks very professional and is 1,000x better and more professional than the $25 cans of texture spray from Lowes. I can’t wait to prime and paint, it’s gonna look so good and professional. I’ve fricked up a lot of drywall to get to this level though


Wet


Dry



Practice with a wide mud knife. The key is to never put your fingers on the center of the knife. Instead, have your fingers on the edge of the knife (side that you want to feather the most). Practice on a scrap piece of drywall first. After some practice, you’ll get the hang of how to hold the knife and you’ll find your favorite techniques.

Also, if you use a knife that’s too narrow, your seams where two pieces meet are gonna look like crap. Key is to use the shallower ends of the pieces as a “pool” for the mud, your knife should be twice as wide as that shallow section (about 4”-5” where the two pieces meet) and feather enough where when you sand, you’re really just creating a new flat surface, filling in the “pool” as though it never existed. Make sure to use tape at all seams. It gets trickier where two pieces meet but we’re cut to fit instead of using the narrower (shallower) ends that were made to meet together. I don’t know how else to describe this and someone else I’m sure will be able to do it much easier than me.

I grew up in an auto body repair shop watching my dad repair cars with bondo. That helped me tremendously when I started doing drywall because I sort of had an idea of how to feather edges and conform to the area I’m working in.

Drywall work is messy and tedious but honestly it’s kind of therapeutic for me.

I tried the wet sponge method but I messed it up way more so I stick to the old fashioned way of sanding and coughing up drywall loogies for days.

Yeah, I could never get the wet sponge technique to work for me. Dry sand, but only with sander that attaches to shop vac--only way to go.

One key thing to remember is to not leave a thick layer on the edge of your mud. Feather it in, like has been mentioned several times. To do that hold more pressure on the side of the knife away from the seam or joint, leaving it a little thicker on the seam and feathering to nothing on the outside. Worst thing is that sudden drop off if you don’t do that. Sanding and more sanding. If you find yourself with a lot of those, best thing is to let it dry as is and then apply more mud.

Yes, the guys that are good at this are amazing, but you don’t have to be good, you can eventually get it right if you just keep at it.

I always tell my customers that want to save money on their job, and think drywall is the place to do it, to let the pros do it and pick something else to save money on. They’re just too good and too fast.

I am very good at drywall but if I had a big project to do I would hire a professional service because they are way more efficient.

The trick for me is to use the mesh tape with sticky back and put that on the seams first. Then float a coat of mud over that with a 4" knife. I leave this coat thin to the point the tape may still show some in spots. Let it dry then knock of any high spots and float another coat with a 6" knife. This coat will cover all the tape and should be even with the edges feathered. Let dry, knock down high spots and one more coat with a 12" knife to even it out flat and feathered.

If any coat of mud is thick to the point you can see the "lump" over the tape line then its way too thick and it will never even out.

Get this and you will finish like a pro

LINK

The 9" sander makes getting a slick finish virtually idiot-proof. Get some sandpaper from 80 to 180 grit and also use the blue boxes of mud for easier sanding

By observing drywall workers, bad drywall work can be corrected over time with the addition of meth.