Just spent 2 hours fixing a butt joint I could have finished in 20 minutes if I'd just pre-filled the gaps first.

Kept thinking I'd feather it out faster by doing one pass, but ended up sanding and re-mudding that seam in a Phoenix bedroom three times before it looked right, has anyone else found pre-filling actually saves time or am I the only one learning this the hard way?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamesblack1mo ago

Yeah, "learned this the hard way" pretty much sums up the first time I tried that single-pass feathering. I did the same thing on a ceiling patch last year, kept thinking I could save a coat by just going thicker and sanding it flat. Ended up with a crater I had to build back up over two more days. Pre-filling is one of those things that feels like a waste of time, but it actually saves your sanity. Now I just treat any gap wider than a hairline like its own little project, fill it, let it dry, then tape and mud like normal.

-1

dylan1241mo ago

@jamesblack I gotta push back on this a little. Pre-filling is just an extra step that adds more drying time and more sanding for something that joint compound handles just fine if you have some patience. A thick coat of mud with a little fiber tape embedded in it will fill a hairline gap no problem, and if you feather it wide enough you barely notice any shrinkage. Why add a whole extra day of waiting when you can do it all in one shot and knock it down with a pole sander the next morning? I've done ceilings where I built up a 1/4 inch gap with three coats of all-purpose mud and they came out perfectly flat with zero cracks after a year.