45 degree angle drywall joint....

John Pollman

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1,332
Location
Rochester Hills, MI
Hi folks,
I've spent the past couple days down in the basement constructing some walls for a new store room and furnace/mechanical room. I didn't want a square store room so I put a forty-five degree angle on that room so that it would open up the view of a portion of the basement. I've done this several times before but it posed a problem when it came to finishing the joint. I wanted it good and sturdy but nice and straight. I used to just cut each sheet with a square cut and butt them tight where they meet at the point of the angle. But that leaves a gap and it's hard to fill. I've used flexible metal tape for those kinds of joints and it worked pretty well but was a challenge to make it look right and be sturdy when done. I started thinking about it while constructing the wall. Here's what I came up with.

I should have taken a picture of the plain corner before putting up the sheet rock but already had one side done. I think you'll get the idea though from the picture. Where the two walls meet I put a 22-1/2 degree angle on each wall. I then ripped each 2x4 that makes up the corner with a bevel on one side. This gave me a nice clean solid 45 degree angle to work with. When I applied the sheet rock, I just ran the piece a little long and screwed it into place. Then I used my "power hand saw" which is nothing more than a scaled down sawzall. It has a nice stiff blade and it does a great job cutting drywall. I carefully laid the blade along the opposite side of the angle and cut the sheet rock at an angle. I got it fairly close and then used a small surform plane to make the edge line up nice and clean with the point of the angle. Then I applied the drywall to the other side of the angle and screwed it in place. Then I repeated the cutting procedure but laid the blade parallel with the finished side of the wall on the other side of the angle. Again I cut it close and finished with a surform. It came out very nice. Now I can apply the flexible metal corner tape over the outside of the corner and it will be nice and straight and should be pretty durable. Here's a few pictures of the process.

This is a wide shot of the room.
storeroom1.JPG


This is a close up shot of the upper left portion of the undone section.
storeroom2.JPG


This is a close up shot of the overlapped corner joint.
storeroom3.JPG


Here's a close up of the finished joint prior to tape/mud.
storeroom4.JPG


I just thought I'd share a bit of the project with you. Maybe it will help you out some time down the road if you're in a similar situation.

Take care

John
 
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when you say flexible corner tape you mean the metal bead that gives you a rounded edge like normal corners have? you just open this up more to fit the new angle?
 
They make a tape with a couple of strip of metal on it for the angled outer joints like that. Otherwise you could do as Larry said and open the regular metal bead further. Most of the time it will stick out a ways and you'll need to feather the wall back further if you're not caulking/painting the trim as the gaps are usually wider as the trim reaches the corner.

The tape with the metal strips holds up very well. Had several corners like that in my last house and neither of the two teenagers managed to ding any of them up. :)

Edit: Just saw that you were using that tape...Project looks good. :thumb:
 
Yep that's the tape I'm using. I thought about just bending a standard metal corner bead to 45 but it might be tough to get it really straight. I bought a roll of paper tape that has two half inch wide metal strips glued to the back side of it. You roll it out and cut it to length. Then I just pre-bent it to straighten it up and make the corner. Then applied a good layer of mud to each side of the joint and placed the tape over top. Just use a 6" knife and run it down each side to seat it and clean up the extra. It looks really slick! It's a nice clean, straight, and even outside corner.

You've probably seen those inside and outside metal corners with the paper attached. They're just attached with mud instead of screws. I love that type of corner. I use it whenever possible. This tape is nice for doing angled corners though. You get the same kind of result as with the pre-bent inside/outside corners.

John
 
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