Sanding drywall mud!

losthighway · Post by **losthighway** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:31 pm

I can't think of a worse way to spend a Saturday, yuck!

That's all

JohnDavisNYC · Post by **JohnDavisNYC** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:33 pm

Sucks.

AstroDan · Post by **AstroDan** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 2:31 pm

I can think of two dozen things home improvement related that suck worse...

...but yes, that ranks at least 25th.

Jon Nolan · Post by **Jon Nolan** » Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:38 pm

hate it. worth paying a dude $35 to do.

losthighway · Post by **losthighway** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 8:05 am

It will actually be really fun to paint this studio once I'm done with the dusty crap.

It's ironic, one day I said "Oh hell yeah! I'm gonna have a 375 square foot live room!"

Some time later I'm saying "Why the hell does this room have to be 375 square feet?"

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 12:34 pm

I hope you're at least using an electric sander. A crapload faster. And wearing a dustmask. As hot and humid as it may be to do that, breathing in that shit is, at the very least, disgusting, and possibly not good for you in the long run.

But yeah, I don't envy you at all. Being done with that crap was the best part of building out a studio.

losthighway · Post by **losthighway** » Sun Aug 30, 2009 2:32 pm

I've got a sanding sponge in my hand and a bandanna on my face. How's that for ghetto? I just keep making up fallacies to keep me going like:

"Damn the snare drum is going to sound good once this corner's smooth ...."

floid · Post by **floid** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 11:16 am

personally, i don't really mind the sanding too much - a good dust mask and an electric sander, i spend my time humming scales around the drone. What i HATE HATE HATE, though, is taping and floating seams. Every time i pull out the mud and knife, i spend the first two hours trying to remember all the little tricks, and the next two hours trying to fix my mistakes.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:27 am

floid wrote: i spend my time humming scales around the drone.

NICE.

Justin Foley · Post by **Justin Foley** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:29 am

+ 1 on the "2 hours figuring out how the hell to do this again".

I find that using an electric sander takes too much off too quick for me. I did, however, get one of those shop vac/bucket/sander combos that you can find at Home Depot and it was well worth the $ to spend on it.

Something like this.

Cons:
- Kind of pricey.
- Can be loud as hell (whistling).
- Needs to be cleaned.
- Vacuum pulls sander closer to wall, making it a little harder to actually sand.

Pros:
- Really, really cuts down on the dust.

My recommendation is to get one, especially if you have to do the ceiling. I ended up being very glad I did.

I spend a long time building my studio and now I spend a TON of time in it. You are right to keep telling yourself that it's going to be worth it: It really will be. Now stop typing and go sand some more drywall.

= Justin

PS - Get a dust mask. Breathing drywall dust can really screw you up after a while.
PPS - Also, drywall dust will screw up your hands. Get moisturizer (really) and make sure you really use it after thoroughly washing your hands at the end of the day.

sound for sandwiches · Post by **sound for sandwiches** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:03 am

one thing that's worked great for me, especially on scratch coats, is to "wet sand" with a big soft sponge. what you do is do your taping and mudding, and then wait for the magic point where the mud is setting but still a little soft (like if you tried to sand it you would just get a smeared mess). then grab a big squishy sponge and a bucket of water, and with a light touch take it to the mud. same type of movement you would use hand-sanding. it kills the high spots very easily, and feathers edges. It won't give you an awesome flat finish surface like sanding will, but it's totally dust free and is fast. If my schedule allows for it I always do my scratch coats this way. I find it a lot easier to do a finish coat that requires minimal sanding than a scratch coat. FWIW I would never use an electric sander on mud except for the vacuum kind. they just throw up way too much dust, and it takes forever to settle, you could walk in the next day and still be in a haze of microscopic dust. I am all about the sanding blocks that attach to a paint pole. you can get nice long strokes and your hands don't cramp up as quickly. Plus the dust falls straight down and it tends to be a coarser dust than if you used a machine.

sorry for the dissertation... I have done a lot of this stuff building temporary walls for art galleries over the years.

centurymantra · Post by **centurymantra** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:29 am

Interesting point on the electric sanders throwing up too much dust. Thinking back on work I have done/had done, this is a good point. I'm pretty sure the guy I have used, who is a really skilled "old timer" type and a real artisan with the stuff, has not used electric sanding - even for the bigger jobs. I think it allows for a more detailed, fine tuning type of job. You could probably rent one of those vacuum type sanders for not a whole lot of change though.

That being said, I'm going to add a +5 for getting a mask to wear. It's one thing to joke about "being ghetto" with a bandana, but the reality of fucking up your lungs and body with the dust from the job isn't too funny. It's a cheap purchase at Home Depot....seriously.

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