Mud Work Hints and Methods

[Bud Cline]

What is used for screeds to plane the mud and how is it attached to the sheetrock? What happens to the tracks that remains when the screeds are removed?

[John K]

Good. At least we can count on Bud to join in.

[cx]

I know, I know, teacher, call on me! I know!

I really do, ya know.

As for the regional aspect, John, I think you might be right. My tile man, who is third generation "Mud", has at least one brother who is still in the tile business, too. Bro lives somewhere in the Dallas area, methinks, and says they do only CBU showers. Wanted to move back down here and work with Terry-my-tile-guy, but Terry tells him he gotta learn to do mud. Bro stays in Dallas. Don't know what other areas of the country do a lot of mud work, but we don't seem to have attracted a lot of them to the site.

For those of you who doubt the speed and efficiency of mud shower boxes, I gotta tell you I've seen my guy do many, and I can't imagine getting CBU walls up as fast as he can mud. The only advantage to CBU that I can see is that you can do it without a helper. You'd be hard pressed to do much mud work alone, seems to me.

[Bud Cline]

I guess if John (and others) are gonna learn somebody sumpin then someones gotta ask some questions. Problem is....iffin ya don't know nothin' bout this stuff then ya don't know what questions to ask now do ya.

So there's my first questions to git this ball rollin, and there's more where them come from. Solet'sgo here teach(s). We all await some answers.

[John K]

Bud. I did ask. Why put up sheetrock? I thought John B was doing it the California way.Paper, lath and scratch.Besides
now the stucco guys in new work in Calif, do all the lath and scratch.

I can't really see the time savings for sheetrock, poly and lath. I understand that you get walls in perfect plane and I would be great to set on. But, for the average setter, they won't go through the trouble.

Bottom line, most are money motivated.

John K

[Bud Cline]

John must have died!

[John Bridge]

John ain't dead yet.

Stucco and tile mud work are not the same thing. I've done stucco, too, and that's how it's done -- scratch, brown and finish coat.

Tile setters have to be quite a bit more finicky than plastererss. Our mud has to be perfect in most respects because we have to set tile on it -- our mud has to be on plane. Plasters, on the other hand, only have to make their finished product look good. Nothing will go over it except paint, usually. Any tile setter who's ever had to put a tile band around an exterior plaster building knows exactly what I'm talking about. The tile (over the tile setter's mud job) goes on after the plasterers have scratched, and then they come back and use the tile band as their "ground." Otherwise, they wouldn't come anywhere near a plane.

Bud,

The "screeds" are merely quarter-inch-thick wood lattice. We call them "float strips" or screed sticks or God only knows what. They are tapped into pathways of fresh mud. You lay your level up against them and tap them in until they're plumb and in the position you want them, vis-a-vis distance from the rough wall. If you get two float strips absolutely plumb, your floated wall will come out a perfect plane. There's no other way it can happen.

The float strips are removed as you move on to other walls. You just move them. The voids are filled in and raked off flush.

You let the walls stand an hour or so (while you're working on other walls) and then come back and true them up with straightedges and a "block." The block can be a manufactuered beating block, a block of wood or a wood float. The problem with the wood float, though is that its edges are eased, and it "floats" over high spots. A fresh cut block of wood is much more accurate. It slices off high spots as it moves over the surface.

[John K]

John. What is the best way to gauge the amount of mud you put on for your float strip. I mean, you have one vertical running strip on one side, and another on the other side, of the shower wall for example. Now how do you determine the distance from the top of the strip to the wall, so that both sides are equal distance from the wall??

[John Bridge]

John,

The biggie is getting opposite walls parallel to each other. This is were those old-timers who carry around the folding rules really shine. You have to measure from the opposite wall to the float strip.

If it's only one wall, say, that doesn't oppose another wall, you just extend you straightedge out beyond the shower to get the range of the bathroom wall and try to keep it parallel that way. The question is which part of the wall is out? Or which part is right? Everything is relative. You've got to end up with square inside corners and plumb walls with everything parallel...

Sometimes it doesn't quite happen, and you can't make it happen. You do your best.

[John K]

So. If you walk into the shower, there is a wall to your left and a back wall straight ahead, and then a wall on the right with the shower head and valves. You would first find out which wall is already plumb? Then work the other opposing wall to that?

What is this I hear from guys who hate mudding walls,saying that it is so tiring on your arms? I think if you added way to much mud, and by some luck it stayed up there. Then It would be tough on the arms pulling it off. Ya think?

I'm really wanting to try this, but using Custom float. It is so much lighter. Do you agree?

John K

I just used Laticrete 286 Wall Mud the other day. Nice stuff, easy to mix and float. It must have some light weight aggregate in it because a full bucket wasn't as heavy as a full bucket of "real" fat mud.

[John Bridge]

Rob,

I've used a local brand of the same thing for years just to keep from having to carry sand around on the truck. The thing I've noticed (besides its relative light weight) is that it is super sticky. You can hold a load on your trowel . . . upside down.

John,

Getting the walls plumb is easy. I'm talking about getting them at right angles to one another and keeping opposite walls parallel.

Every once in a while I find the wood strips left in the mud (under the tile) while doing a demo. Sometimes, I find the channel left and never filled with mud, with the tile set right over it. This makes the demolition a bit easier because it is a good place to attack with the demolition hammer.

[Dave Gobis]

Mud class coming up in February. Maybe we should have John B come over and participate?????? The Yankee and Good Old Boy methods, anybody want to come see that? If we can get a total of 14 I would do it.

[tileguytodd]

Hey Rob, Good to see ya!!
Ok John,why not explain to the class a little bit about the differant types of Mud-cement etc.Remember some people
need very basic information.Portland-masonry(the differant types and where they are used)

Ok im out another long one in the AM