# which type of cornerbead?



## mikey9626

I've just finished hanging drywall in my basement. Went to the home improvement center and seen a varity of cornerbead . Without having to buy or rent any special tools which is the best way to go . And how should I apply it ? With staples ,spray adhesive, or a combo of both?


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## Cork-Guy

I found the below resources that should help you..

How to Install Corner Bead | OnlineTips.org
How to Install a Corner Bead: Home Repairs & Improvements | eHow.com
Drywall - Exposed corner bead :: BuildIQ.com


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## mikey9626

Thanks Corky!


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## Nestor_Kelebay

Mikely:

Definitely go with Trim-Tex vinyl corner bead (or competitor's equivalent).

The best way to attach it in 4 foot or shorter strips is to simply mix in some white wood glue into your mud.  The glue will make the mud stickier and dry harder so that it better supports the corner bead.

What I do is fit the corner bead in place and mark the lines on each side of the corner in pencil.  Then I mix up my sticky mud by adding white wood glue to my mixing water, and then using that solution to mix my powder.  I apply the mud to the drywall corner first, then to the inside of the vinyl corner bead.

Then I stick the two together and press the vinyl corner bead onto the corner hard with a 3 inch wide knife so that the excess joint compound comes squeezing out the holes.  I then collect the excess using the 3 inch knife, wipe the corner bead down with a damp sponge, and put several strips of painter's masking tape across the corner bead to hold it tight to the corner while the sticky mud sets up.

Allow to dry overnight, pull the painter's masking tape off and then mud the corner bead normally.

Vinyl corner bead has the inherant advantage that if it's knocked loose by an impact, you can pull the corner bead away from the corner a little, use a small brush to slip some white wood glue under it and glue it back on.  Metal corner bead has multiple disadvantages:

1. If you hit it hard enough to knock it loose, then you've dented it, and you simply can't straighten bent metal corner bead.  You have to replace the bent section at least.  By contrast, vinyl corner bead snaps back to it's original shape so you can normally simply glue it back on.

2. It's very difficult to remove only a piece of metal corner bead because it's so thin that it's hard to cut through with a fine tooth hack saw blade without the teeth catching on the metal and pulling more of it loose from the corner.  By contrast, it's relatively easy to cut through vinyl corner bead to replace a bit of it should you ever need to.

3.  Metal corner bead in a damp area (such as on window returns) will rust and discolour the joint compound.  Vinyl corner bead don't rust.

I've had experience with both metal and vinyl corner bead, and I'll never use metal again.


From the first link in Cork-guy's list:

"Most pros advise against plastic corner bead due to its propensity to crack or break at some point during installation or maybe in the future."

The above is total crap.  The guy writing this has absolutely no experience with vinyl corner bead.  It doesn't crack unless you're installing it in -40 degree weather and it's very very cold.  It will bend before it cracks but it snaps back to it's original shape, rather than being dented like metal corner bead.  Anyone that says vinyl corner bead has a propensity to crack during installation (or afterward) simply has no experience installing it.  I have vinyl corner bead around all 66 windows in my building, and I wouldn't use anything else.

"Metal lasts virtually forever and is easier to install. Knowing how to install corner bead properly not only adds a crisp, clean edge to outside wall corners, it also adds protection against this relatively vulnerable area of your home's construction. This area tends to be like the nose on a face: Since it's out there, exposed, the tendency for it to be battered when moving furniture, banged against with toys, or sometimes simply run into from a miscalculation when negotiating a turn, is great."

Which is exactly why you want to have a corner bead that snaps back into shape after it gets a hit.  With metal corner bead, if you hit it, it can dent or break loose from the drywall corner, and then you can no longer fix it, you have to replace the damaged metal corner bead.  You can glue vinyl corner bead back on.

http://www.trim-tex.com







The above stuff is what I use.  I stick it on by mixing white wood glue into my mud to make it stickier, stronger and harder.  And, in 66 windows over the course of an average of 10 years or so, I have never had any trouble with the vinyl corner beads.  I had more than my share of problems with metal corner bead either denting or rusting and having to be replaced, so I replaced all the metal corner beads with vinyl.


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## taperguy71

Hello, Yes you could go with vinyl bead but I think metal is stil the best way to go mainly because vinyl has a tendency to "shine". Also all I do for a living is drywall tape commercially and all we ever use is metal. The way we apply it is with what is called a clench on tool but also we use staples.I use a duofast hand stapler with 9/16'' chisel point staples as they go throgh the metal with no problem. Staples are also the weapon of choice professionally when attaching vinyl corner bead. Over the years I have seen corner bead attached in many different ways but in my opinion metal bead with staples is the best and most efficient for those with no special tools.


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## Nestor_Kelebay

Taperguy:

I mix white wood glue into my drywall joint compound to make a sticky mud that dries quite strong and hard, and I use that to literally glue the vinyl corner bead onto the corners.  It sticks to both drywall and vinyl corner bead very well.

I have absolutely no doubt that you can put up corner bead with your crimper or stapler faster than I can using my methods and vinyl corner bead.  But, you have to remember that what your company considers the "best" job you can do and what a homeowner considers the "best" job he can do are really quite different things.

Your company wants to get the job done as fast as possible so that they can get paid and have you working on the next job and making more money for them.  No one in your company, not even you, are at all concerned about what happens if an employee in one of your office buildings moves a desk and puts a nasty dent into one of your metal corner beads.  Except for any callbacks, your company (and you) loose all connection with each job site the minute the work is done and you move to the next job.

For a homeowner, a fast installation isn't nearly as important because he's doing the work himself in his free time.  What's important to the homeowner is to install the corner bead that he's going to be happiest with, and install it in the way that's he's going to be happiest with.  That is, he wants to avoid that sinking feeling you get when you realized that you COULD HAVE done that, or done it that way, instead.  And that you would have realized the benefits of having done it that better way if you'd only taken more time to research all of your options at the time.

Thus, your company considers speed of installation to be highly important and long term satisfaction means little because you loose all connection with the job once it's finished (and still brand new).  To a homeowner, things are the other way around.  It's long term satisfaction that's of paramount importance, not speed of installation.

And, it's LIVING WITH metal corner bead that's the problem.

If it gets hit hard enough to knock vinyl corner bead loose, then metal corner bead will dent.  You're a professional in this kind of work.  Have you ever been able to straighten a dent in INSTALLED metal corner bead?  I can more or less straighten out a dent in a loose piece, but it always bends outward, and the drywall prevents me from bending it inward sufficiently to straighten it.  So, I have to cut out the dented section and that's a story in it's own right.

The advantage to vinyl corner bead is that it doesn't dent.  It bends, but immediately snaps back to it's original shape.  That makes repairs easy.  You can lift the flange of vinyl corner bead and squeeze some sticky mud under it with a wide putty knife and stick it back on.

My own experience trying to replace a section of metal corner bead because of a dent made me a lifelong sworn enemy of metal corner bead.  And, to top it off, the stuff I was fighting with was nailed on with ring shank nails!  I found I was unable to cut metal corner bead with a hack saw without damaging it, and that meant having to cut out more and more metal corner bead so as to remove the damaged metal without damaging the as-yet-undamaged metal corner bead was truly a test of my patience.  A tooth of the hack saw blade would catch on the metal corner bead just as you were completing the cut and bend the flange outward or upward or whatever way.  And once bent, it was impossible to straighten so that it would be straight.  The drywall edges prevented a person from bending it inward to compensate for that outward bend.  The result was that the only way to get it straight again was to continue cutting out the damage until you managed to cut through that paper-thin steel without damaging it.

And, it's that one fundamental difference involving BENDING and DENTS that makes vinyl corner bead easier to live with than metal corner bead.


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## taperguy71

First I would like to say that I am extremely offended when someone who doesn't know me or my work "asumes" that all professional construction workers are out to do sub par work as fast as they can just to make a fast buck. This is simply not true albeit there are some shady outfits out there but fewer than you may think. I take much pride in the work I do as well as my brothers in the trade we are union card carrying drywall finishers. I have used every kind of drywall product to come along and there are many I use Trim Tex products everyday in the form of tearaway bead,radius bead for doing curves,j bead, reveal bead as well they are great products and they all have a place as well as vinyl cornerbead. The use of metal is not simply to slam through a job to make bossman as much cash as possible but because it has proven itself to still be the best choice for the application, Why? because of straightness. Vinyl is flexible that is why you have to snap chalklines to keep it straight up the wall, also speaking of walls your average homeowner isn't going to have a perfect drywall hanging job to work with so they will struggle to get this vinyl straight even with a level. Next that shining I was refering to is what happens when you have a bulge in your drywall so now you have to overfill your compound to hide it.With metal it is so much easier to get straight corners even with drywall imperfections due in part to how thinner it is. In the drywall world there are definitely two cornerbead camps first is traditional metal group and the other is the bead X group.Bead X is paper faced metal bead that is run through a hopper full of mud and then stuck to the corner and the paper face is smoothed out but it is still metal bead. Vinyl bead has a place too in regions close to the ocean.Due to salt air of course metal rusts so we use vinyl bead and fasten it with stainless steel staples. And you never use mesh tape over vinyl bead it serves no purpose as the bead is already perforated. Also why would someone use wood glue to stick plastic? Wood glue is for wood. If I am going to glue on vinyl bead I use 3M super 66 spray on glue but only in places where it is hard to reach or mechanical fasteners are not an option. And lastly as far as dents go most dents I repair ar done with a few taps from the oposing side of the dent with the backside of my 6'' putty knife a little compound and done. For bigger damage two cuts with the tinsnips, a splicepiece,a look with a level, fasten and done! no sweat. And all of our work is quality inspected by the architect,the general contractor and the building owners as well as the painting contractor so i doubt we would ever get away with doing sub par work.


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## Nestor_Kelebay

taperguy71 said:


> First I would like to say that I am extremely offended when someone who doesn't know me or my work "asumes" that all professional construction workers are out to do sub par work as fast as they can just to make a fast buck.



I'm sorry if I offended you, that was not my objective.  I was making the point that the drywalling company has a different perspective on this kind of work than the homeowner.

Quality of workmanship is equally important to both the homeowner and the drywalling company.  But the time it takes to do the job is not equally important to them both.  The homeowner is spending his own spare time, whereas the drywalling company is paying for your time.

So to the drywalling company, the speed with which that high quality work gets done is also of importance.  To them, the more time the job takes to do, the more they have to pay their drywallers and the more it costs them to do that work, so the higher their bid when it comes to bidding on a job.  And, that in turn affects the amount of work they get and the rate of growth of the company.  So, they're  very concerned about the cost of labour.

I can tell from your posts that you're a professional and know what you're talking about.  I want this thread to be about which kind of corner bead is better for a homeowner to use, since it's giving homeowners the best advice that's the reason we're all here.  And, I simply disagree that metal corner bead is better for a homeowner to use than vinyl.



> The use of metal is not simply to slam through a job to make bossman as much cash as possible but because it has proven itself to still be the best choice for the application, Why? because of straightness.  Vinyl is flexible that is why you have to snap chalklines to keep it straight up the wall, also speaking of walls your average homeowner isn't going to have a perfect drywall hanging job to work with so they will struggle to get this vinyl straight even with a level.



You're telling me that corners done with vinyl corner bead won't be as straight and vertical as corners done with metal corner bead?  In both cases, the corner bead is going to be equally straight.  They're both going to be as straight and vertical as the corner the corner bead is applied to.

The vinyl is not so flexible that you have to straighten it to make it "look" straight.  

Maybe I've been doing it wrong all my life, but I've never snapped a chaulk line or used a level to install corner bead.  When I install vinyl corner bead I'll take a piece of it and slide it down the corner and scribe the outer edge of the flange on the drywall on both sides just to know how far out to apply the joint compound.  So, I end up with vertical lines on each side of the corner, but they're not necessarily vertical.  Besides, the corner would have to be pretty far out of whack not to look vertical when it's finished.

The bigger problem is that often the drywall won't meet well in the corner and the corner bead won't be properly supported from behind.  That's where corner bead that's mudded on will work better than clinching or stapling or nailing; the mud will fill the empty space behind the corner bead.



> Next that shining I was refering to is what happens when you have a bulge in your drywall so now you have to overfill your compound to hide it.  With metal it is so much easier to get straight corners even with drywall imperfections due in part to how thinner it is.



Now, it stands to reason that the thinner the corner bead, the thinner the layer of mud you need to apply over that corner bead to cover the flanges and thereby hide the corner bead.

But, if you look at the profile of the Trim-Tex corner bead, they intentionally mold a bump onto their corner beads that requires that there be a thicker layer of mud on both sides of the corner to cover the flanges:






and it's that peak that allows you to bury the flange in mud even if the corner is curved.



> Also why would someone use wood glue to stick plastic? Wood glue is for wood. If I am going to glue on vinyl bead I use 3M super 66 spray on glue but only in places where it is hard to reach or mechanical fasteners are not an option.



Because adding white wood glue to joint compound both makes the mud stickier and makes it dry both harder and stronger for better impact resistance.



> And lastly as far as dents go most dents I repair are done with a few taps from the opposing side of the dent with the backside of my 6'' putty knife a little compound and done.  For bigger damage two cuts with the tinsnips, a splicepiece, a look with a level, fasten and done! no sweat.



A coupla cuts with the tin snips and it's ready to put the repair piece in.  You're kidding me, right ? !

How can you cut installed metal corner bead with one of these:






without bending the corner bead on the undamaged side of the cut away from the wall too?  You need to be able to cut off the damaged metal corner bead without damaging the straight stuff.

Now, lemme explain myself...

Forgive me from taking you to task on each of your replies.  But, the only way that newbie homeowners in here can learn about a subject is to hear knowledgeable people argue their respective points.  In so doing, each of us is going to put forward our best arguments to counter the other person's points.

And, that is the only way that the newbies in here can learn enough about all aspects of the subject matter to walk away from that discussion with enough knowledge and understanding to form their own opinions.


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## Nestor_Kelebay

Taperguy:

     I need to apologize to you.  I make my own beer and last night I dipped into it so deeply that I got plastered.  So, my last post starts off in a civil tone and ended up pretty aggressive and abusive.  That was the alcohol talking, not me.  If and when I'm sober, I'm a pretty civil person.  The first thing I did this morning was change the previous post to remove any aggressive and abusive language.

     That's one of the problems in communicating over the internet.  Very much of the way we communicate is non-verbal.  The way we say things, the tone of our voice, and the slur in our speech all provide non-verbal clues to what's being said and what it means.  But, when you type messages on the internet there's none of that, so people take everything that's written at face value.  It's not until you look at the time the message is posted (like 3:00 in the morning) that you realize that the message needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

I can tell from your posts that you know what you're talking about and your kind of knowledge is valuable to this forum and the people that come here for advice.  So, let me offer you my heartfelt apology for any offense you may have taken to my post.


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## oldognewtrick

Nestor_Kelebay said:


> Taperguy:
> 
> I need to apologize to you.  I make my own beer and last night I dipped into it so deeply that* I got plastered*.



Nestor, was this a pun? Oh well, I thought it was funny.


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## handyguys

okay - not reading Nestor or Taper guy, sorry if I repeat.

I prefer the metal corner bead. My opinion is it is the strongest. It doesn't require anything special to install it. just use drywall screws.


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## taperguy71

Hello Nestor, Actually it's been kindof entertaining debating cornerbead ins and outs. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. It seems your biggest hangup about metal is the dent removal problem so let me reiterate the best ways to do so. I suggested tin snips mainly because this is geared toward homeowners and the tools they have available. For smaller dents I like I said tap it from the outer edge of the dent til it is straight then recoat it. For significant damage you have to remove the damaged area and install a splice piece. To cut through the bead above the damage for removal there are many different methods. Tin snips do work and the ones I use personally aren't as big as the ones you have pictured but do flare the corners when the cut is made you simply fasten them back down and add a splice where the damage was making sure it is straight with a level. But I prefer to make the cut with either a small cordless metal saw or a hacksaw. And I think everyone owns stapler or at least should. Also I prefer staples for fastening mainly because screws tend to warp the bead and don't stay as flush to the drywall making coating more difficult.


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