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About This Project
To make your next taping job more successful, we’ve come up with a novice-friendly guide for getting good results. We’ve simplified professional techniques so you can learn them easily and recommended the basic tools and materials you’ll need to achieve smooth, flat walls ready for paint.
Since 90 percent of the cost of a professional job is labor, taping your walls yourself can save you several hundred dollars, even on small jobs. The key is a methodical, step-by-step approach with the proper tools and materials. Otherwise, taping will drive you nuts.
We’ll show you how to avoid the most common rookie mistake: heaping on mud and then counting on a massive (and filthy) sanding effort at the end to rectify mistakes. We’ll also show you how to gradually build up layers, feather edges to avoid ridges and knock off high areas of freshly applied mud.
We’ve added a color to each coat of mud to make it easier to see the proper order of application. The first coat is orange, the second green and the third yellow.
Although this three-coat taping system is standard, you may find that problem areas require more coats. Even the pros go back over difficult areas a fourth or even fifth time. Carefully examine the walls after each coat to determine areas that need more attention.
Buy or Rent These Taping Tools
You’ll find a mind-boggling assortment of gimmicky taping tools at home centers. The truth is, most aren’t worth having and you can do an excellent job with just the ones we recommend. Banjos and clinchers can speed up and improve the job. They’re a must for larger rooms with lots of corners. But for small jobs, skip the banjo, and if you only have a few corner beads to do, nail them on by hand and skip the clincher too.
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Four-inch flexible putty knife ($5) for small filling jobs and applying second- and third-coat mud to angles (inside corners).
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Six-inch flexible putty knife ($5) for larger filling jobs, embedding tape and filling fastener holes.
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“Potato masher” mixer ($8) for hand-mixing a bucket of mud quickly and thoroughly.
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Mud pan ($4) for convenient dispensing of patching, fastener hole and corner mud.
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A clincher ($45 to buy or $7 per day to rent) makes quick work of crimping corner beads accurately in place to hold them for nailing.
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A 12-in. trowel is less fatiguing and easier to use for applying mud to the joints and corner beads than the standard wide taping knives.
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A banjo ($65 to buy or $8 per day to rent) is essential for all but the smallest taping jobs for dispensing mud-saturated tape right onto the drywall joints.
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