Finally got the hang of taping drywall corners without the mud going everywhere

Sean Fisher · 2026-03-11T02:35:07.385796+00:00

I used to treat corner bead like it was a race, slapping on mud with a 6 inch knife and making a huge mess that took forever to clean. That changed last fall on a basement suite job in Mill Woods. My buddy, who's been doing this for 20 years, watched me for five minutes and just said, 'You're loading your knife wrong.' He showed me to put a thin line of mud on each side of the corner first, then set the bead, and only use a 4 inch knife to press it in. I tried it his way on the next room and it cut my clean up time in half. The bead sat flat and the mud didn't squirt out the sides. Now I do every corner like that and it feels way more controlled. Anyone have a different method for keeping corners clean?

barbaragarcia6mo ago

Remember that guy who always had mud on his ceiling? My friend worked with him on a townhouse job. He'd put the bead up and then just GLOOP on a huge amount of mud with a 12 inch knife. It looked like a volcano went off. The foreman finally made him stop and showed him the "string of pearls" method. You put little dollops of mud every few inches along the bead before you press it. Uses way less mud and it doesn't squeeze out the ends. My friend said it was a total game changer for keeping the area clean.

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susan3507mo ago

Try wiping your knife clean after each pass, that stops you from dragging excess mud across the wall.

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richard_mason7mo ago

Know that feeling of mud going everywhere... used to make a huge mess myself until a guy on a site showed me the paper tape trick. He'd dampen it first so it sucked up the mud and didn't bulge. Makes a world of difference when you're trying to keep things clean.

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