Plastering angle or corner beads
Summary: Plastering angle and corner beads for a neat plastering job.
Using angle beads or top coat beads to get a neat sharp corner when skimming is not difficult. Whether you are putting the beads onto dry wall plasterboard or onto a base coat you have already plastered, the important thing is to get them on the wall so they give a uniform thickness to the plaster you will lay on against them. Its no good having the worlds most upright corner if you can feel the angle bead through it. It will soon show up through the paint or wall paper.
If working with drywall, we prefer to nail the beads on as there should always be a timber batten underneath a place where the edges of two bits of plasterboard meet. When working on base coat plaster, we prefer to glue the beads on by sitting them in a dollop of skim and scraping off the surplus. The skim goes hard very quickly as most of you who have tried plastering know!
You can see from the image above how the bead sits on the corner. Pinch the two sides together a little so the apex or ridge of the bead sticks out a little. Then cut it to length using a sharp 
pair of tin snips. Tack it, or skim it in place using your spirit level for plumb. Nothing makes a job look worse than a leaning corner seen against a plumb window frame.
Tack the nails well in if you are using them. Nail heads only have to stick out slightly to cause the most irritating of problems. Once a bead is properly in position it makes the application of the skim to the corner so easy. When you have (as you will with window reveals where they meet the window head) two beads meeting each other. Try and mitre them together so the actual ridge of the bead sits nicely with its partner. It is the time spent on these little touches that are the difference between a good job and an excellent job.
To watch a short video on "taping drywall corners" visit our video section on taping corners by clicking on the link.
All project content written and produced by Mike Edwards
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