Service 02 Taping and finishing
Drywall taping and finishing in Billings
Your painter will thank you.
This is where drywall jobs are won or lost. It's also where most of the time goes, because mud has to dry between coats, and there's no honest way to rush that.
How finishing works
- Tape coat. Tape bedded in compound on flat seams and inside corners. Outside corners get bead.
- Fill coat. A wider coat over seams, bead and screws to build up the low spots. It dries before anything else happens.
- Finish coat. Wider again, feathered out so the seam blends into the face of the board.
- Sanding. Then we check the walls with a work light held flat against the surface, which shows ridges the overhead light hides.
- Skim coat, for Level 5. A thin coat over the entire surface, so the paper and the mud take paint the same way. About Level 5
Billings air is dry, which helps coats set up. Cold doesn't. In winter, the building's heat sets the pace more than we do, and we'll tell you that up front instead of finishing over wet mud to save a day.
What "paint-ready" means
Sanded, dusted, checked with a light, and any marked spots fixed. New drywall should get a primer made for it before paint, so seams and paper don't "flash" through. We can prime and paint after finishing, so one crew takes the walls from board to paint. Painting