How to putty properly - from choosing a tool to finishing grouting

Gusevsky Andrey Anatolyevich

Putty application on the wall

How to properly mix the putty, and then putty the walls with it, is an interesting and not always easy question to solve. The number of flat walls in apartments as a percentage is minimal.

To remedy the situation, one of the ways is to level the surfaces by applying plaster and putty, which will help in the future to complete the final decoration of the room with your own hands. How to do this, the article will tell.

Tools for work

For self-sealing of walls, it is necessary to prepare a minimum set of tools.

Some of them and their purpose are presented in the table:

Tool	Appointment
Electric drill, with a special nozzle - mixer	For high-quality mixing of dry putty mixture to get a homogeneous composition without lumps
A set of spatulas of various sizes, from large (50 centimeters) to very small	Putty even planes and problem hard-to-reach spots
Paint rollers and brushes	For priming surfaces (seePrimer before puttying walls - is it needed) Tip: This step cannot be skipped. After the primer, the thinnest film appears on the wall, which improves its strength, provides reliable adhesion of the treated wall with all facing materials
The rule	When applying putty with a thick layer, it is convenient to use a long metal rule to level it
Alcohol or laser building level	To control the treated wall
Sandpaper	For a beautiful, flat surface. An ideal result can be obtained by grouting the 240th skin
Hand skinner	For convenience when sanding the wall with sandpaper
Capacity	For stirring putty (seeHow to spread putty: instruction)

Wall preparation

Preparatory operations depend on the condition of the walls. Before starting work, you need to carefully study their surface.

Possible defects and methods for their elimination are presented in the table:

Further, the instructions for preparing the surface for final finishing require its primer, regardless of the material and its adhesion to the base, but the composition of the coating is selected taking into account these factors.

Primer is required for:

• Strengthening crumbling surface.
• Protect it from moisture absorption.
• Dedusting.
• Improvement of adhesion with putty.

Tip: The primer should be selected after studying the instructions, which indicate its purpose, the material of the walls for coating, the recommended climatic conditions for using the solution.

The primer is applied with a brush, roller or spray. In this case, the plastered or concrete surfaces are primed immediately as a whole, and on the drywall, only butt joints between the sheets are first processed, and then the entire surface is covered (see.Drywall Primer: How to Do It Right) Putty is performed after the primer has dried.

Material selection

Putty is conditionally divided into two types:

• Starting, with a larger grain, designed for the initial alignment of walls with small defects:

1. cracks;
2. troughs.

• Finishing, fine-grained, designed for finishing leveling and giving the surface absolute smoothness.

Putty is produced:

• Ready to use. The material comes in different volumes in plastic buckets. Moreover, he:

1. has an optimal consistency;
2. does not require time to prepare a solution;
3. easy to apply;
4. but its price is greater than dry mixes.

• Dry composition to be diluted with water. Sold in paper bags. To prepare a working solution, a special tool is required: an electric drill with a nozzle or a construction mixer.

It is quite difficult to mix the putty manually until it is homogeneous, but it is possible using an ordinary spatula.

Crack Sealing

Crack Sealing

Cracks in the walls can be covered with gypsum putty or santegypsum, but the hardening process of the latter lasts much longer.

Wherein:

• The crack widens a bit.
• Its depth and thickness slightly increase.
• A defective plane is scratched along the entire length with a knife or any sharp object to increase roughness.
• The primer is applied.
• Putty is being carried out.

Putty walls

How to grout putty

Tip: The shelf life of the solution after preparation is no more than an hour. When using a dry mixture, apply it immediately after preparation, and knead the composition so that it can be used up during this time.

To perform all the work efficiently, without marriage, it’s nice to get to know the work of specialists, as seen in the video in this article, and then practice in an inconspicuous place on the wall surface.

Puttying the walls is performed in the following sequence:

• Application of the starting solution. You can make a layer up to 15 millimeters thick at a time. If necessary, make several layers, the previous one should completely dry.

To obtain the maximum quality of surfaces, a special masking grid is installed on the wall, along which the solution is evenly distributed.

Laying the grid for applying starting putty

In this case, you need to putty the walls in a continuous layer. The advantages of this technology:

1. putty on the grid fits perfectly on the plane of the wall;
2. the surface gains greater strength.

At the same time, a coarser masking grid allows the surface of the wall to be made smoother.

• Mounted beacons, which are a wooden, plaster or metal rail, set strictly vertically, which is checked by the level. On the wall, the lighthouses are fixed with a gypsum mixture - it dries quickly, which allows you to start immediately puttying. Similarly, the surface is aligned in horizontal lines using the rule.
• A finishing putty mixture is applied, which will give the wall surface perfect smoothness, eliminate the smallest cracks and fill the pores.

Drywall putty

Before you begin plasterboard putty, it is necessary to close the butt seams between the sheets.

For this:

• Seams are smeared with putty with a wide spatula.

Butt weld processing on drywall

• Until the mortar has dried, a serpentine tape is glued along the entire length of the seam, pressed into the putty with a small spatula, and smoothed so that the mortar protrudes through the cells of the ribbon.
• Another filler layer is applied to the seam, completely hiding the sickle and leveling the recess between the sheets, which is created by the factory edges.

Further:

• In one motion of the spatula, the screws of the self-tapping head recessed into the drywall are putty.
• After drying, the seams are ground with a grater.
• The entire surface of the wall is primed.
• The primer stays dry.

Next, putty is performed in this way:

• A small spatula does not pick up a lot of solution from the container, which is applied evenly over the entire width of the wide spatula with a sliding movement.
• The tool is brought to the surface at an angle of approximately 30 ° and is pressed evenly along the diagonal of the surface.
• The next movement is in the cross direction.
• After using up the entire portion of putty from the spatula, the next one is recruited, and work continues.

Tip: It is necessary to lay a layer with a thickness of not more than 4 millimeters, without leaving grooves on the surface of the grooves from the edges of the spatula, they should immediately be leveled.

• To obtain even and right angles, a special angular spatula must be used, it can be replaced by fixing angular plaster profiles.
• After drying of the applied layer, grinding eliminates visible coating defects.
• The surface is primed.
• A finishing layer of putty is applied, with a thickness not exceeding two millimeters. For this, the composition is made a little more liquid than for the first layer.
• The final step is polishing the walls with backlight. In this case, the light beam is directed at a small angle, which will reveal the slightest defects that are invisible on the putty, which can appear after staining.
• The surface is primed.
• The wall is painted.

The quality of the repair performed depends on how putty is properly rubbed after its application. Therefore, due attention should be paid to this stage of decoration.