re: Tips for floating drywall? Update: did my first coat of mud and tape.

Like most things related to construction, it's not hard if you know what you're doing. You won't know what you're doing the first time, so you're going to make mistakes.

Worst case scenario, you can always put up some wallpaper.

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Like most things related to construction, it's not hard if you know what you're doing. You won't know what you're doing the first time, so you're going to make mistakes. Worst case scenario, you can always put up some wallpaper.

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I actually work in the construction “field” just more on the telling people what to do side. Not the doing it myself side. So far any issues that have come up on whatever project we’ve faced, we’ve overcome it.

I’ve found the key here is to know the little tricks to disguise your mistakes. And knowing what mistakes won’t actually show in the finished product.

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We just bought a house. We are stretched as far as we can possibly go without cutting into emergency stuff which I am not doing. We are a young couple in our first house. I appreciate the advice but paying someone thousands to do this simply isn’t an option. The money to do that does not exist.

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We’ve all been there. You are going to purchase $100 worth of tools to do it yourself. It may still be worth it for you to take $50 and whatever meat you can part with from your freezer, and a case of Budweiser to your nearest job site and find a Pedro that wants can knock it out in an hour after he leaves another job site.

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Tips for floating drywall?

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Move to Livingston, start drinking Red Bulls, develop a slight addiction to Kratom, and work with a sheetrock guy for a year.

So am I sanding 3 times or once when I’m done? I have the 3 taping knifes.

I guess I really do not want to frick around with mixing myself. Am I really fricking myself that bad with premix? Again drying time is not an issue. I’m fine with waiting a day or more between passes.

FYI this is the drywall I have hung so far.

I’ve done a lot of DIY but didn’t do my first drywall until last year on a bathroom we had to redo. Tried the premixed first. Was difficult to work with. Went to mixing myself and made the whole job a lot easier. You can control the consistency and it goes on smoother. It wasn’t bad at all to mix.

Ok, here you go.
Buy a bucket of mud with the green lid and a couple of buckets with the blue lid (lightweight). Use the green for the first (taping) coat. Add water to the bucket and mix with a good drill and drywall mixing paddle. You will want this fairly thin, like cake icing as mentioned, or milk shake. Either tape will do for your joints, corner bead for the corners. I prefer the corner bead with the paper already on it. If you don’t use that kind the bare metal will do. No need to screw it into the corners, the mud will hold it. Use a 6” knife to tape with, be sure not to leave any speed bumps on the edges. Thinner is better but you have to have enough to bury the tape. Hit all screwheads.
Before the second coat use the 6” knife to scrape off any ridges left in the mud. Not really any need to sand after the first coat.
Second coat use the blue bucket. Lighter, easier to spread. You will want to mix this with water, a little thinner than the first coat. Use a wider knife spread the mud (again, thinner is better) getting it as smooth as you can. Do not overwork it ! Leave imperfections to be sanded later.
Before the third coat, use a foam sanding block or sanding sponge (we use the foam blocks, mostly).
Third coat is the lightweight mud again. You won’t use as much but you can feather your seams out even further. Use the 12” knife.
Hit the screwheads with mud every time.
After the third coat is your final sanding. This has to be good. Light sanding is better than violent sanding.
I like to make circles with a pencil to mark wherever needs more attention to be sure nothing jumps out at me later.

I always tell customers/clients that floating drywall is NOT where you want to try and save a few bucks. You can get it done cheaply enough and it is labor intensive. Likely a better finished product, also. But if you must, you must.

Nice job on the hanging, by the way. A tight, neat hanging job makes the floating better and a good bit easier. Good luck.

I'd just follow these directions from 9rocket if I were you.

I've taped a bunch and this is very close to what I do (although I'm pretty good just using the green bucket mud and continually mixing more water to get the final polishing coat).

If you're having trouble getting the final coat smooth, you can just take your watered down mixture --like a really thick milkshake -- and apply it in 3 or so foot sections with a paint tray and roller and use your large knife to smooth by removing it.

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Tips for floating drywall?

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Burn the house down...

So I have no idea how bad this is. Hoping it is serviceable and any mistakes can be taken care of in sanding and further coats. I did add a splash of water to the premix and it made it much more milkshake like like some posters suggested. Very smooth and easier to work with. I could tell right away out if the box the mix would’ve been a pain in the arse. Glad I laid down a protective layer as I did get drips. Felt like I got the tape on OK but not pleased with the air bubbles. Tried to work them out but didn’t want to just keep scraping the tape and spill all the mud out. Again hoping if I can just spend forever sanding I can work a lot of the kinks out.