have always caulked; never occured to me to tape them till i saw someone doing it on a video.
caulk has come away once or twice where large heat fluctuations cause metal stud to move.

Tape if dry lining, scrim tape if skimming.

meaning paper tape if just joint filling taper edge boards?
not skimming

meaning paper tape if just joint filling taper edge boards

That’s what I do. Vastly reduces the chance of cracking and makes it easier to get a smooth fill

hmm, another bit of skill to master then…

Depends if you’re doing walls and ceiling, in which case tape. If just walls or ceiling then caulk so you dont knacker the finish on the one.

Depends if you’re doing walls and ceiling, in which case tape. If just walls or ceiling then caulk so you dont knacker the finish on the one.

No skill required really. Push some filler into the corner. Push the tape into the filler with a putty knife, or similar. Smooth the filler that has oozed out over the tape. Once set go back over it with more filler for a smooth finish. I use the metal reinforced tape to give a nice straight corner:

EDIT: Just to add, I’m a DIYer so I do it in a way that works for me with limited skill and experience.

aye turns out it’s almost easier than flat joints.
using simple paper tape. piece o piss. jobsagoodun

That’s a corner tape in the pic above, external corners only if you please.

Any gap over 2mm I’ll fill with scrim tape and filler but only put the scrim over the gap butted up to the other board. Fill again, sand mist-coat then caulk. This allows for any movement that you get between the two plains happens behind the caulk. Paper- or scrim-tape and a skim-coat arent structural and wont hold or stop any movement from wall/wall or wall/ceiling.
I Taped and joined for over 16years ( averaged 400 – 500m2 per week )learnt my trade in Germany who were years ahead of Britain in the dry-lining/ partioning game in every respect; accoustics, movement, fire-ratings..etc coming back to this country so stuck in its ways used to make by blood boil when talking to sites agents or architects…typical example..worked at a new Mod complex where the office block was 150 meters long 3 storeys high. The atrium went full-length the of the building 20m wide with offices either side. The wall either side of the atrium were clad in metal-stud, plasterboard and jointed full height and full length apart from around the office windows looking into the atrium. Not one expansions gap built into it anywhere. Every joint cracked…and the suits stand there scratching their heads as to why it might of happened..

thanks tymbian,

when we say scrim we’re talking about mesh tape right? not paper?

so you stick the scrim on the board that ‘has’ the gap, (typically the wall board if ceiling’s been gyp-ed first) just butting the edge of the tape up to the other board, than fill up the gap through the scrim?
fill and sand to a finish, then caulk over the top to hide any eventual movement?

i agree paper’s not structural, but it seems to resist a lot better than scrim. and lots of folk have told me this. do you agree?

and yes duckman, i agree the steel reinforced tape is more for external corners, but some use it for internal too, and seemingly fine

without wanting to re-spout the old cliches about german engineering etc, i find there’s something scientifically open-minded in some bits of german culture which seems to mean they arrive at really good ways of doing things. proper job from the start. look at festool tools for eg.
mind you, once they’ve found that way of doing things, they won’t let you do anything else!

Jamiesilo..yes mesh-tape & you’ve read it correctly..fill the gap through the mesh first fill = gap and overall width of say 4 inches. Second fill out our the 4 inches..about 6 inches and feather into the board. If you can get a mist-coat ( ideally drywall primer ) on first you’ll have less hassle with the caulk.

Yes German engineering.. I’ve built expansion-gaps in 90min fire-rated partitions where the expansion gap itself has to be fire-rated to 90mins
And been in school classrooms where they set up sound equipment on one side of the partition and measuring equipment on the other side to see if the partition has been built to the required decibel rating… oh and everything built off of a datum..

That corner tape with the metal strips is bloody ace.
Even I got a nice sharp corner.
A fad cry from my usual rustic technique.

what kind of movement are you expecting on an 8ft high wall corner?
(repairs excluded) Only time I’d use caulk (elastomeric acrylic) would be at the butt joint if I were tearing old and installing new drywall walls with the existing undisturbed texture finish ceiling left in place.
I am not an expert like tymbian, however he’s doing some serious commercial installations.
On 8ft ceilings, surely you need to address the stud connections at corners or to themselves if their movement is transmitting through to your drywall surface.

thanks again tymbian. i’d love to tap your expertise more in the future : )
i’ll be drywall priming yes.
how do you make the expansion joint in drywall then? does it run through the studding as well? is it just finished with caulk at the surface or with a purpose made strip?

not sure what you mean dirks.
the studding is all fixed together. vertical studs at corners are connected, wall top rails are screwed to ceiling rails (only know correct names in french, sorry) tho sometimes through the gyp, which is normal as i understand it (maybe not in germany!)

the caulked cornes which opened up all did so after 2 weeks of very hot weather, up to 37 deg. the initial work was done in the winter or early spring. seemed to me, wihout analysing it in much depth, that the uprights expanded with the heat, increasing length by a mm, maybe 1.5 absolute max, and so pushed up ceiling structure, which hangs on those little hangers which have some play in them.

anyway. not that intersting : )
i’ll tape my corners this time. don’t think i have any gaps big enough to use the patent tymbian method