 Hello, this is Ryan Borhes instructor with the construction technology department at Ivy Tech Community College. And today I'm going to demonstrate the proper methods for taping and finishing a standard tapered drywall joint. For an example we're going to use a standard tapered drywall joint. And I'm going to go through some of the tools that we'll use to complete this process. The first tool that we plan on using is a 6 inch taping knife. And this knife is used to apply mud and remove that mud from the tape in the first step. The second knife we're going to use is an 8 inch finishing knife. All of these knives are very stiff and sharp to allow for a very clean edge. And the final knife that we'll use is a 12 inch finishing knife, again a very stiff, strong sharp knife. You'll notice I'm holding a drywall pan. This is to hold my mud as I'm working through the process. It has sharp edges for cleaning off my knife. In addition, as far as tools are concerned, when we're done and we're ready to sand, we will use either a sponge to wet sand. Or a drywall sanding pole with an open-faced paper to dry sand. So I'm going to start off with step number one and step number one is to apply a 5 inch wide layer of mud to the joint. Fairly thick about an 8 inch thick. And then I'm going to apply standard paper drywall tape to that joint. This paper tape is pre-creased. So if I was doing an inside corner, I could crease this by hand and apply it to the joint, but we're doing a flat joint. So I'm not going to crease this tape. Now with paper tape, I have two options. I can apply this tape directly to the compound, or I can pre-wet the tape in a bucket of water and smooth it out and apply it. I'm going for this demonstration. I'm going to apply this tape wet. So to start off, I have my joint. All the drywall is done and ready. I have an empty pan and a 6 inch taping knife. This is a stiff knife very sharp. So I have pre-mixed drywall compound here. You can also mix your own compound, but I chose to use pre-mixed for simplicity. I'm going to load my pan up with mud. Keep in a clean knife as I go. As you can see, I have about, oh, maybe a cup of nice compound here. This compound is about the consistency of peanut butter, which is about what I want for taping. I keep it all on one side of my pan, so I have a clean side so I can always keep a clean knife. I'm going to leave my knife here and get my compound out of the way. For this step, I'm just going to dig into my compound. I have a knife full of compound and I want to apply about 5 inches. My knife is 6 inches, so if I applied it straight on, I would have 2 wide. So I'm going to choose to apply my mud more vertically across that joint so I can keep the mud right in the center of that joint. Again, I'm applying this mud fairly thick. I'm going to take and actually strike that mud off with a very little pressure. I'm just trying to spread it out evenly. Across this joint. Then add the areas where you're not quite 5 inches. I have a few low spots here. Again, as I work here, I keep my knife clean and only cut off what I need. If I allow mud to stay on the knife, it will dry and it will create issues later on. This is adequate for this particular joint here. At this point, I'm ready to get my tape. I'm going to take my tape, hold it at one end of my joint, and estimate the length of that tape. I'm going to take my fingers and tear this tape like so. Again, I can apply this dry straight to the joint, but I choose to apply it wet, especially in a dry atmosphere. It helps that tape adhere to the compound much better. I take that tape, wet it, and ring it down. It's ready to put on the wall. I'm going to center this tape on the joint and give enough pressure to get it to stick. I'm not going to push it in there with my fingers. At this point, I take a clean knife and I'm going to hold one end of this tape. If I was just to start, I'd pull the tape off the wall. Holding one end and always starting at the center, apply very firm pressure at about a 45 degree angle. And embed that tape into the compound. Now that it's stuck, I don't have to hold the other side, so I'm going to start in the middle, 45 degree angle. And pull that knife across to embed the tape and take my excess back to the pan. So the tape's stuck. I'm going to do this one more time from the center always. We work from the center because if we started on one end, we could create a bubble that gets stuck in the center. So we want to start in the center and work away to eliminate opportunities for bubbles. And there we have a properly embedded first layer of mud with tape. And at this point, we will let this mud and tape dry overnight. And then at that point, we'll be ready for the next step.