Watched an old timer do a butted seam with a 6-inch knife and my bead game instantly got better

I spent 3 months fighting with blisters and bumps on my inside corners before I saw a dude in Tulsa just use a 10-inch knife for the whole pass and now I'm wondering why nobody told me sooner, has anyone else had a basic trick like that totally flip their finish quality?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena11mo ago

Pretty sure that's not a 6-inch knife you're talking about, those are usually 8 inches for butted seams.

nancyw971mo ago

...which is funny because I watched this guy in Oklahoma City do the whole thing with a 12-inch knife and he said size doesn't matter as much as the angle you hold it at. He was doing like a 45 degree tilt and I swear it looked like magic how the mud just laid down smooth. I spent like two weeks after that just practicing on scrap drywall trying to get that same feel. Ended up switching to a 10-inch for my butted seams even though everyone online says 8 is the way to go. Now I keep a 6-inch in my bucket for tight spots but honestly I could probably ditch it and nobody would notice.

grace50814d ago

@nancyw97 the 45 degree tilt thing is huge and nobody talks about it enough. I spent like three weekends in my garage just doing passes on old drywall scraps trying to get that angle right because you really do feel it in your wrist after the tenth pass. What got me was how smooth the mud lays down when you're not forcing it straight on, you know? It's like the knife almost floats on top instead of digging in. I switched to a 12 for my flat boxes after that and honestly my coats got way more even without all the sanding touch-ups. The trick with the bigger knife though is you gotta keep your mud a little looser or it'll drag weird at the ends.