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Just realized mixing a little dish soap into my mud helps a ton on slick surfaces
I was taping a ceiling in this old, glossy-painted house in Cincinnati last month and my mud kept sliding right off the surface. Out of pure frustration, I squirted a tiny bit of Dawn into a 5-gallon bucket of joint compound. It made the mud WAY more sticky and it held perfectly on that slick paint. I've used it on three jobs since with no issues. Has anyone else tried this or found a better trick for adhesion problems?
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the_holly24d ago
Cincinnati's old houses have the slickest paint I've ever seen. That Dawn trick is genius, and it totally tracks with what @the_cameron said about glue. I'm grabbing a bottle for my next bucket.
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the_cameron24d ago
Oh man, that slick paint is the WORST. I had a similar panic moment once but with glue, not mud. I was trying to stick some trim back on a really old, waxy baseboard and nothing would hold. I ended up mixing a drop of that clear dish soap into my wood glue out of pure desperation. It worked like a charm and made it spread way easier too. Your trick makes total sense for mud, it probably breaks the surface tension just enough to grab on.
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