When skimming walls in order to bring a plaster finish up to a better standard, what happens at reveal and external corners? Do new mini thin-coat angle bead/mini mesh get fixed or simply use a corner trowel?
Anyone use this Screwfix product for corners?:
Depends how good you are at plastering. Using plasterboard beading is easiest. Next easiest is to fix a piece of wide timber to one wall overhanging the corner so you can plaster up to it from the other wall like it is an internal corner (this generates a razor sharp external corner which you'll probably want to sand down). An external corner trowel is probably the hardest of the 3 ways, and getting the edge straight is hard. (Note they need wearing in when you buy them -- they won't work well straight off the shelf.) They're useful for repairing damaged external corners.
If the corner is likely to be subject to things bashing into it, plasterboard beading will give best protection.
It's just tape with two metal sections stuck on in the middle( the grey parts with a very small gap between) which you fold over and fix to the corner of the wall and plaster over it .
Any plasterer I've had do this job for me has always attached new (standard) beading over the old.
applying 3mm of skim plaster, then surely the reinforced metal corners will be buried under 3mm of plaster which will be vulnerable to knocks - surely the whole point of using beading at external corners is so the metal is exposed to the atmosphere and protects the corner?
David
Your logic sounds reasonable until you say this:-
" surely the whole point of using beading at external corners is so the metal is exposed to the atmosphere and protects the corner?"
What if your intention is just to paint the plastered wall ..would you want the metal exposed to the atmosphere in that situation.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com writes
expected to use it but the instructions say metal strips to the wall with the tape on the outside. After a (very) short attempt at using it I dumped it in the bin and got some low profile external bead, much better.
Ah right ..I never thought of using it paper side out ...I've not actually used it at all ...just checked the box it came in and it has no instructions . What didnt you like about it ?
I thought it was going to be a light, possibly aluminium, strip with a simple fold down the middle that could be stuck on the corner [*] before applying a light skim, just to the corner, feathering out over 6" or so to nothing.
It turns out that you are meant to apply a wet plaster coat to the corner then embed the tape in that with the metal inwards, then smooth over the outer with more plaster. In short, it is too many balls in the air for the inexperienced plasterer.
Also, with the two metal strips not mechanically linked (except by the paper tape) I thought it wouldn't be as strong as a folded corner bead.
Does that make sense?
By contrast a thin plasterboard bead holds itself together and while an expert may hold it in place with a few dabs of his skim coat, it's no shame for an amateur to tack it in place with a few nails or PB screws without that slip/slapping urgency I felt with the steel banded tape.
[*] I think the detailed description mentioned something about being self adhesive but that is just between the steel bands and the tape ie. no use in fixing it to the corner.
The metal is made from galvanised steel sheet, so there is no problem with it being left exposed to the atmosphere.
I think you missed the point I was attempting to make ...about painting the wall...
I'm not sure the edge vulnerability is the main issue here. It's rather more that the 3mm raised edge of the plasterboard beading gives you a perfect corner edge to trowel off against, and you don't have to make a perfect corner out of plaster, which is more difficult. You can also plaster both walls together as the beading isolates the two plaster finishes, which you can't do if you are forming the corner by hand.
I can't actually see any point using that paper/metal tape at all, and I still don't understand what it hoped to achieve.
No, I didn't miss that at all. I'm sitting right next to a metal strip on the external corner of a skimmed plasterboard wall. It is about 110mm to one side of my PC monitor.
It is painted, and it looks fine to me.
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