# Wrinkles in joint tape normal?



## RetroJoe_1 (Nov 19, 2017)

I hired a finisher to complete my drywall job on the first floor of the house. He came a couple of days ago and taped all of the butt joints and taper joints as well as fill some of the screw holes. He did not do any of the inner or outer corners . He was supposed to come yesterday but canceled. He also showed up 45 minutes late on the first day and today he's already a half of an hour late and no sign of him. Obviously I'm getting nervous . He seems professional as far as equipment goes. He uses a banjo and is working on stilts for the ceilings. 

I noticed after he was done on Tuesday that there were wrinkles in a number of areas around the tape on the taper joints. I thought maybe they would settle but I noticed today that the wrinkles are still there. I'm not sure if this is normal or not or whether I can expect them to come out between further coats of mud and sand but I want to make sure that this is being done correctly. I'm wondering if this is something normal to expect or whether I should bring this up to him along with his not showing up on time. I live a half of an hour away and it's an inconvenience to get up super early in the morning to get here and have him not show up.

The other question I have is a veteran drywall finisher told me that I should use vinyl corner bead on the entire archway, not just around the arched section but also down the jams. And he recommended using the corner adhesive spray by 3M. This finisher says that the vinyl corner bead for the jam section would be more prone to cracking or denting if a piece of furniture hit into it and prefers to use the super wide paper faced metal bead Up the Jam and then transition that into the arched vinyl. He also mentioned taking measurements off of the floor to figure out where he was going to terminate the arch bead and start on the side. I spent many hours perfecting the arches and don't want to leave them open to interpretation at this point. I just figured he would use my arches as the mold. I was also told that the arch being should be brought down a couple of inches below where the arch terminates which would make it less prone to cracking at the joint.

Any advice?


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

If the wrinkle is actually a bubble [air under it] it will need to be cut out and removed.
I've always been partial to metal bead but I've never done any arches.


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## Yodaman (Mar 9, 2015)

Wow, you must of hired the same so-called professional I hired once when needed help to finish quickly. Late every day, no show every other day. Used a banjo and stilts. I fired him after a week and did it my self. He used vinyl corner bead with spray adhesive, which several of them are now cracked from being bumped. I had always used straight metal and will continue to.


Some pics of your wrinkles would be helpful.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

IMO corner bead should always be nailed [plastic or steel] Some will use a crimper on metal bead and those are also subject to fail.


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## hkstroud (Mar 17, 2011)

> Any advice?


Fire him. Now.


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## ClarenceBauer (Mar 4, 2005)

As for the beads I would use all metal beads.
When joining two bead ends together you use acoustical hanger wire insert it in the back side of the rounded corner than crimp with end nippers to hold the wire tight in the bead radius this will insure that the two beads ends stay together NO Cracking.


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## Sdiver2489 (Jan 14, 2013)

I'll disagree with most everyone here:

Wrinkles in joint tape do happen. They aren't a problem, especially if they don't exceed the depth of the taper joint. It'll just be covered up. If they are air bubbles that's a different story but wrinkles aren't bad.

In terms of vinyl vs. metal bead. The most important think in my opinion regardless of which you use is to mud it on. You can get plastic or metal bead that is paper faced. This stuff will last the test of time. Nailing is prone to popping...screws are better but slow. Spray adhesive is fine but you use that as a secondary method of attaching not the primary. A lot of times staples are used. I would still mud on the corner bead if it were me.

Now him being late is annoying...but that's a different topic.


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## RetroJoe_1 (Nov 19, 2017)

Sdiver2489 said:


> I'll disagree with most everyone here:
> 
> Wrinkles in joint tape do happen. They aren't a problem, especially if they don't exceed the depth of the taper joint. It'll just be covered up. If they are air bubbles that's a different story but wrinkles aren't bad.
> 
> ...


He was actually able to get all of the wrinkles out for the most part after the second coat. I brought it up to him and he said they were all going to go away and they did so I didn't fire him. Elliptical arches also came out nicely. However yesterday the half round arches we're another story. These are very important to me because I spent a lot of time perfecting the plywood arch mold and hanging the sheetrock so it was as perfect as possible. He sprayed the arch peed on the floor with the corner bead adhesive and also sprayed the arch sheetrock itself. Did it the right way and let it get tacky and then applied the bead. The problem is he then put mud on it right away down around me areas where it met the corner bead going straight up the jam. The bead started to slightly pull away from the sheetrock so it wasn't hugging it as snuggly as it should have been. He left shortly afterwards and there was still play in these areas. I'm worried that he did not give the corner bead adhesive enough time to set up since he put the mud on so quickly. I ended up texting him about this and he said he was going to do it over tomorrow and use Durabond. I thought it might be better to tack it in place to make sure I was getting the most out of the arch. Any advice to make sure that I have an arch that's going to last a long time?


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

Leave it for him to finish.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

It sounds like the weight of the mud pulled the bead loose.


> he said he was going to do it over tomorrow and use Durabond


.
Does he plan to remove and reglue the bead or just go over it with durabond?


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## RetroJoe_1 (Nov 19, 2017)

mark sr said:


> It sounds like the weight of the mud pulled the bead loose.
> 
> 
> > he said he was going to do it over tomorrow and use Durabond
> ...


I'm not sure whether he's going to remove all of the bead. I'm assuming the parts of the bead that he didn't put the mud on will probably be glued down pretty good and if he tried to remove it he's going to be ripping paper off. Unfortunately I'm not going to be around today when he goes to fix it. I just want some kind of peace of mind that whatever he does is not going to rear its ugly head a year from now it looks good tomorrow.


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