Types Of Drywall Joint Compound (MUD)
Their is many types and makes of drywall joint compound or mud, available on the market for you to use. It may be difficult to select which is the kind you need to use.
But in the end there are really just 2 main types of joint compound, fast setting types of compound and a dry setting type.
The most commonly used type of joint compound is the premix type know as a "dry setting" or "mud" type of compound.
Dry Setting Type Of Joint Compound
This type of compound come in either a box or a 5 gallon bucket. It is premix with water and after adding a little more water it is ready to go. No waiting time, no messing around. A big plus with this mud is the fact that the extra mud left over from the days work, can be put into a sealed bag and reused the next day.
In the dry setting type of joint compounds their is 3 main types.
- THE TAPING MUD - Is used for applying tapes and either paper or plastic beads to the walls. This mud has glue in it to make it very resistant, at the same time it is very hard to sand. You don't want to finish coat your walls with taping mud.
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THE FINISHING MUD - Is used for coating, don't use taping mud to coat your walls, you will not like sanding. This mud is used to coat everything after the tapes and beads have been put on. SYNKO® CLASSIC FINISH Drywall Compound is a high performance joint compound that is excellent for filling and finishing gypsum panel joints.
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THE ALL PURPOSE MUD - Is used for all stages of the drywall job including taping and installing beads. It is also used for the fasteners, trimming, and coating. If you got a small job to do then this is your types of compound, but for anything bigger I really recommend using the taping and finishing mud combo.
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THE DUST CONTROL MUD - This type of mud is getting more and more popular with home owners, it is the same as the "All purpose mud" except that it creates less dust, it falls straight to the floor instead of floating around. Again though it does not archive the same results as using taping and finishing mud.
The dry setting type of compound do have some requirement, it cannot be under 0 Celsius when installing or the mud will actually freeze and tapes could fall off your walls. Drying time depends on hottest, humidity, and airflow.
You should wait for the mud to be completely dry before you sand, if you sand to early and it is not completely dry, it could shrink back after you sanded it and making it look bad.
Quick Set, Fast Set, Durabond Type Of Joint Compound
This type is a lot different the dry setting type. This type of compound actually dries from a chemical reaction, and usually gets very hard very fast. Most of these types come as a powder form with in a bag with different drying times ranging from 20 minutes to 90 minutes.
I like to keep this type around in case I need an area done real quickly for whatever reason. This type glues well to other types of material, and it also gets really hard, harder then normal mud.
This type as it advantages, but it also has a lot of disadvantages like : harder to sand, difficult to mix, dry's very quickly, everything that's mix must be used(cannot be saved for later). This type also doesn't quite paint the same as the mud does, it will always be a little more shinny at the spot you used the quickset compound.
