anyone up yet?

no

me neither

so, i suck at mudding inside corners

mesh tape - stick that into the corner

do you have an inside corner mud tool?

4 inch knife - apply some mud to the corner on the ceiling and wall

4 inch corner mud tool over it as far as i can reach - move ladder - repeat

problem 1: sometimes the mesh tape shows through even after multiple coats

problem 2: uneven application of mud

Your first coat isn't thick enough

ok

1st coat = fill coat - make sure you've got coverage

2nd coat and possibly 3rd coat are your feather coats

ok

I only use the corner tool on coat one

as for even application - you'll get that, it's a practice thing

yesterday i tried something different - i only did opposite walls at the same time; my 3rd problem is the corner tool used when 2 walls meet with the ceiling, i almost always f' up the opposite wall mud while its wet

so i stopped doing the entire room in 1 shot - and just did 2 walls - opposite sides of the room, the next time i go to mud, i'll do the other 2 walls

then the after the dries, i'll do the vertical corners

what i do in the 3 corner points is mud the whole thing and ignore the ridges

come back a bit later when the mud is starting to stiffen and scrape off the ridges

ok

very carefully mind you

you're shaving the damp mud

what about when the mesh shows through on 2 butt joints in the middle of a wall?

not enough mud

unless - is the mesh pulling away? are you getting it pushed tight up against the joint before you mud?

using adhesive mesh right?

make sure the joint is clean and dry, then run the mesh tape down and push down firmly with your 2" blade

when i apply mud, generally i pull the knife pretty tight - adhesive mesh, yes, its not pulling away - i think when i pull the knife, i'm taking to much off

and then enough mud to cover

sounds like it

My finish layer is usually done w/ an 18" knife

my feather layer

that way you never spot the seam cause its so gradually built up

thats a big knife, no?

yep but you need that to hide the bump

you want enough mud on the tape to cover and then you want a nice wide feathering in after its set up

so maybe if i cover the tape with a 6 inch, let that dry - then on either side of it, fether with my 8 inch ?

That's a knife!

look at how wide these seams are

yeah

What are those steel kettles for?

beer?

I dunno

i just found a pic - looks like brewing tho

another thing i'm doing wrong i think is i've always sanded in between each coat - sometimes exposing my mesh

I used to do that

now i only scrape off the ridges of my 1st coat

cover the mesh - let that dry - knock down any bumps with the knife, then begin to feather

right

i like a damp sponge instead of sanding for final

That's why I use paper tape. I always get the mesh grid showing through.

i also noticed (begin to finish the room i drywalled in the summer) the joints have hair line cracks in them - its been 5 months since i applied the first few coats of mud and drywalled the room ? could be settling i guess or change in temperature

so i'm trying to fix thows obviously before i prime

so in the end i guess i'm just being impatient maybe - stop sanding, build up 2 or 3 coats nice and wide, then sand / sponge at the end - only knocking down high spots with the knife in between

i'd say 1 coat thin (4") but thick enough to ensure mesh never shows

then 2nd coat wide

really wide

and 3rd only if needed

ok

if your first coat has visible edges, so what

do you add anything to your mud? soap? water? i always buy the 2 gallon premixed low dust stuff

let it firm up real good so you don't hurt it when you finish with the higher pressure wide blade

my feather coat is done with lots of pressure on the outside, almost none on the middle (torquing the knife)

i'm tempted to score a pastry bag from the wife and do a beed of mud in the corners then pass over that with the corner knife - dry, then feather the edge

kinda like caulking and going over it with your finger

don't think you'll get enough mud that way

anyone have an opinion on different kinds of lights across multiple bedrooms?

when we did the master bedroom, we did a 4 inch can with a regular light bulb socket

but now, those lights are no longer available at home depot - so for this bedroom, we bought 4 inch can halogen (the 2 prong twist style) and shes concerned about the bedrooms not matching

i could see if i can order the ones we used in the master bedroom online, but does it matter?

individual bedrooms are individual

they don't have to match each other

thats why they have like, doors, and stuf

so they can be distinct

@lsiunsuex I actually use latex caulk in the corners instead.

If there's hairline cracks from shrinkage/whatever.

It flexes so that it can close up again ... whereas mud won't. And latex paint will bond to it.

Just filling the hairline crack with latex using a really small cut caulk tube tip, and then wiping excess away with a damp rag, should give you a one-step paintable finish. Do it the day before you paint.

kinda curious why it cracked in the first place

the house is over 80 years old

Did you use bagged mix powder, blue bucket/box, or green bucket/box?

i know weight has shifted in removing the plaster and lath, but enough to crack a fresh joint?

blue bucket pre-mixed low dust

Yeah, it only takes a little tiny bit. I've found the blue bagged u-mix and the blue premixed stuff tends to crack down here in TX as soon as the humidity/season changes.

The green box pre-mix stuff is more tolerant to cracking for some reason.

I have no actual idea of what the difference is between the blue and green stuff.

think its just dust control and weight of the product

What do you do to stop outside corners from wearing off? If got steel corners showing already.

lock the kids in a cage?

Better paint. :-P

they sell plastic/vinyl clear corner protectors

Yeah. That's kind of like plastic slip covers for your furniture -- The solution is worse than the problem.

I think those are ugly. If you have kids, just resign yourself to buying the most expensive Sherwin or Benny Moore paint.

I used the hi-end stuff that Lowes carries.

I didn't say they were a good idea. I just said they have them. ;)

Hi end stuff from Lowe's is like water compared to Benny Moore Aura. It's like 3 mils thick when dry as opposed to six or eight mils thick.

Valspar... Had to look it up.

We are not fans of their paint

we prefer Home Depot's Behr line

I didn't like Behr.

we use sherwin williams (whatever the high end is called) - stuff is awesome - self heels

too chalky -- It pics up dirt when you look at it.

Behr is OK, but you can scrub even benny moore's aquavelvet stuff with a green scotchbrite pad and soap to get crayon off the wall when your kids decide to start their art careers without going through the paint.

Gotta use eggshell finish though. Not flat.

yeah... Eggshell just sucks in the dirt.

I mean flat...

we always use satin

flat is garbage begging to get dirty

I use semi in the kitchen/laundry, and satin elsewhere.

Our landlord repainted the entire house with flat before we moved in, so we're kind of stuck with it in the rental, and it sucks. Especially in the bathrooms.

you could ask if you can paint

most landlords aren't opposed to tenants making changes for the better

opposed ;)

my brother rents to his sister in law - her husband is always fixing stuff around the house for my brother. yeah, its family, but money not coming out my brothers pocket either

My last rental, before I got married, I negotiated a $300 painting budget up front. Landlord was happy, as he didn't have to hire anyone, and I was happy, as I got to choose colors and knew exactly what had been done. I handed him the last months rent, and he peeled off $300 and asked for receipts when I was done.

then again, the douche bag (brother's brother in law) charged me to snake out my main line last year (hes a plumber) so he can f'ing forget about me ever fixing his PC again for free

We'd have to repaint the entire house, and it probably won't happen because she wants to sell it and likes the way it looks.

In case anyone's been wondering why I've been AWOL, mostly it's to focus on work, but this didn't help:

283 packets transmitted, 224 received, 20% packet loss, time 558710ms

when in doubt, reboot!

I went down and reset all the network gear and all was well again, but a flaky ISP makes for terrible VOIP service.

who's the provider? we've been experiencing some shitty service last week with our DS3's

Cox

think our problems were with verizon

/me feels your pain

that ping was to their own webserver, so the issue was internal

Ok, back to work, I just like to peek in now and then to make sure there aren't any fires to put out.

hur hur, hur hur, @BMitch said Cox

could be worse; he could have said time warner (vomits in mouth)

Our problem's actually been with Level3's interconnects with Cogent.

Which might also explain why other ISPs have been having problems, since many of them use Level3 or Cogent for parts of their backhaul.

@KarlKatzke which locations?

@Aaron Miami, Dallas, and Chicago for our stuff. We have two ISPs in each colo.

Someone did something stupid to BGP systemwide on one of our two ISPs and the two ISPs have been pointing fingers at each other and saying not me ever since, and it's totally roached traffic to the point where we're manually failed to Cogent at the moment I think but some customers routed via Level3 can't access us.

As far as I know there should be no blackholing of traffic

Misrouting due to lack of updates in an ISP's core routers due to failure to listen to BGP advertisements often results in blackholing whether the ISP intends it or not.

True, but we don't blackhole stuff all that often!