Plastering Drywall - Improvising Fill for a Gap

Check this out...

LMAO the raid on kitchen tools :D

Impressive finish too. I'll be satisfied if I can just get it to stay in place.... well it's only a basement. Sealing is more important than looks (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

I have to confess, until 0:54, I thought he was going to use nothing but kitchen tools for the repair. Kinda disappointed that he didn't.

Cut a strip of wood to fit in the gap. Glue it in place with construction adhesive. Overlay with drywall compound, or with compound that sets rather than dries (plaster of Paris, 'Structuralite').

Lots of scrap wood around. Construction adhesive, not so much. I considered just putting a molding over it too, but after trying a few pieces, found the corner is not perfectly straight either.

I just went down and tried slipping a folded piece of tape through the gap to see if I could jam it into place on the other side of the joint. Didn't quite make it but it does seem possible to jam some paper tape in there that's holding enough to stop the mud from just falling down inside the wall.

The piece of screening, unknown synthetic material, might or might not have the kind of adhesion that I would expect of the paper tape. That's what I'm thinking after Mr. Google tells me why not to just duct tape it.

Construction adhesive is available in dispensing tubes - a few dollars at the hardware store. It is usually a high viscosity polyurethane. It can be mixed with sawdust to the consistency of dough and then trowelled into the crack. It reacts with the moisture in the sawdust to cure, and expands as it does so, filling any gaps. After a couple of hours the excess can be trimmed off and a skim coat of drywall compound applied. I've had good luck using this sawdust/adhesive mixture to fill various gaps/holes.

That's a great tip, thanks. Good to know it works as filler with decent adhesion for the plaster.

Just checked my sealant box and actually have a tube there of LePage PL Premium. I had it for a landscaping fix that didn't happen - my compost supplier recommended it for cementing brick or rock so I got it to fix some outdoor steps.

I have some sawing up to do on the ever long list, so I might just set aside the dust from that for plugging other holes and gaps.

What do you trim it off with?

As I wrote, polyurethane adhesive expands as it sets (20% maybe), so it is a messy glue to work with, but the advantage is that it is a good gap filler. Set-up time is dependent on ambient temperature and moisture content of materials being glued (non-organic materials should be dampened with a cloth). Excess hardened glue/sawdust mixture can be trimmed with a sharp chisel or flush trim hand saw - easiest if done when the mixture has set firm but not completely cured. The resulting surface is a bit rough so should be skim coated with an appropriate material, then sanded.It is a method I came up with for interior and exterior non-structural repairs, although others have surely also discovered this usage of construction adhesive.

In the spirit of just wing it get it done, I went ahead with some random stuffings: crumpled tape in the wide end, a piece of dry mud, folded tape still sticking out of the corner.

As I suspected, the compound is not thick enough, and soon bulging downward from the crack. Especially over the crumpled tape and bit of loose dry plaster, which were the biggest gap anyway. I went back and troweled it flat a few times hoping it would start to dry quickly. No good. So instead of waiting for the fill to dry before taping, I went ahead and taped it. Looks like it's holding, so far so good.

The thin wood slats sold as shims for doors can be very handy as backing material for drywall holes. Cut or break the wood slat and use wood glue to attach it to the paper backing of the drywall.

If the hole is on a side wall then temporarily use some wire to position the glued wood to the back side of the drywall, and secure it to a clean piece of wooden slat on the front side of the drywall. Remove wire and clean slat after wood glue is dry. Rubber bands are often useful as a disposable method of holding everything in place until the glue drys. They can pull the glued wood on the back side forward toward the dry wood on the front side. When the glue dries you just cut the rubber bands and add plaster.

1. Cut a strip of sheetrock a few inches wider than the gap, to insert in the gap and lay on top of the gap.

2. Cut out a square using both sides of the gap, and cut a sheetrock plug square to fill the cutout.

3. Screw the square plugs to the sheetrock strip using sheetrock screws and countersink them.

You now have a sheetrock backing for your gap.