Wet Sanding Cracked Joint Compound and Scraping ad Infinitum
By Joe at 8 December, 2008, 11:00 am
We let the joint compound covering the kitchen doorway dry overnight and this morning it looked more or less like this:
To be fair, this is probably the worst bad spot, but overall there were quite a few small cracks in it. Googling today for “cracked joint compound“ returned an overabundance of warnings not to put joint compound on too thick, none of which were included in the pages I read yesterday before applying the joint compound. We also probably should have kept the heat on a constant temperature overnight/when we left for work this morning.
“your environment is making the out side of the compound cure befor the inside, thus developing the cracks. Make sure to turn on the heat or get a room heater to increase the temps in the room as walls and floring absorb alot of coolness over night.” -Some guy named Stugotz on Yahoo Answers.
We got home from work pretty late, but I was determined to clean up the cracks so that we could put another layer of compound up. Unfortunately I didn’t make it all the way through, but I smoothed out the worst areas. I did this by wet sanding the compound using water and a sponge. This takes a lot longer than traditional sanding, but once you factor in cleaning the dust off of everything you own, it evens out a bit. Here are some steps from About.com that you can follow for wet sanding:
- Start with joint compound that is not completely dry. However the compound should be dry enough that it won’t immediately smear off when you touch it. Drywall joint compound a few hours old should be right.
- Soak sponge in bucket, then squeeze out.
- Start with light, circular motions. Remember, let the water do the work more than pressure from your hand. Right now, you’re just concentrating on the high ridges and the spiky portions.
- When it gets too difficult or the smears are too thick, rinse out and squeeze sponge in bucket. Sponge should be wetter than on the first pass.
- On this second pass, since you’ve already taken down the high ridges, you can concentrate on lowering the joint compound “bump.”
- After two passes, you’re done. Any more wet sponging will get the drywall paper too wet. If two passes aren’t sufficient, you may need to dry sand the joint compound.
Wet sanding helped smooth out rough edges and the wet joint compound filled in most of the cracks. Here’s where it ended up (I’m letting it dry more):
The picture doesn’t show that the cracks are filled with a light layer of wet compound. You can still see them, but the surface is smooth. A second coat once this one is dry should hopefully smooth it over more.
Gretchen took a bit of wallpaper off from over the archway on the opposite side of the kitchen. That wall is basically done now, and it looks pretty nice.
Our next challenge is going to be figuring out how to take off this 61 year old wallpaper that was covered up on the underside of the archway.
Unlike the rest of the original wallpaper, this was not removed before the newer layer of wallpaper was put up. It’s on there pretty good. Hopefully we’ll make more progress tomorrow.
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Looks good you might want to use drywall tape or the mesh that is preglued OR spackle in a caulking gun if all else fails there,is THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF MOULDING