Ways to Cut Drywall

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How To Cut Drywall by bluntman001


Straight Cuts :

Straight drywall cuts are completed with possibly a utility knife or even a keyhole saw.

Using a utility knife :

When reducing drywall using an utility knife, you don’t attempt to cut all the way through the drywall using the knife. to cut the drywall with a utility knife, you need to score the drywall (cutting using the razor knife about 1/3 or 1/2 way into the drywall), then snapping back the drywall along the scored line, then finishing off the cut with the razor knife on the backside of the sheetrock.

Recommendations :

Use a brand new knife blade, old blades will tear the paper and also jump along the kine when cutting. Use a pencil to make your marks, don't use a pen or it will bleed thruoght the paint When using a straight edge to do your cutting, mke sure to really keep them fingers out of the way.

Notes:

1. In the event you can not cut the backside of your drywall, you may complete it from the front. When you cut the board from the backside, it minimize the chaces of the paper tearing, but if your very cautious, you should be able to cut from the front side with minimal tearing.

2. When your cutting a piece of drywall from an existing wall, don't set your blade more then the tchikness of the drywall. It will prevent you from blindly cutting wires (or whatsoever) in the drywall cavity. As soon as you are able to see within the wall, and understand what is the affected area, then you can certainly adjust the depth of the knife if needed.

Reducing a piece of drywall for sheetrock repair will demand creating two cuts - size and width. Cut your first piece along the whole width of the sheet, and then cut the lenght of your piece.

Using a Saw :

It is possible to use a saw to cut the sheetrock if you really do not want to use a knife. Sawing produces a lot of dust, while cutting with a knife isn't going to A time that the saw might work better for you then the knife maybe be when you need to cut off only a sliver, a piece less then an inch or so. There is also different types of saws available including:

Keyhole or Jab saw :

I was made to cut out holes(along with typical cutting). This device is about 12” , and the blade make a sharp point at the end to penetrate the drywall and start the intial cut. The keyhole saw functions nice for circular or radius cuts.

Basic hand held saw :

You can find manual, hand saws built for drywall cutting. Almost all of these saws will cut both ways of the sawing stroke - up and down. Not like the saws made for wood, which are made to cut only in the downwards cutting motion.

Rasps :

If you only need to shave off about a 1/2 inch, then a rasp is what you need for the job. A rasp is made to shave off a portion of the length of a cut, where maybe you didn't cut the drywall evenly, or even the hole you're fitting it into just isn't quite square. You'll be able to rasp off some of the lenght or width and make the drywall fit. Rasping produces loads of dust, so limit it to only little portions , to tweak the shape.

Circular cuts

Circular or radius cuts may be accomplished by using a keyhole or jab saw. You can trace out the radius (or circle) with a compass or perhaps a pencil attach to a rope and thumb tack (significant radius cuts).

Circle cutting device :

The circle cutter is really a compass that employs a “blade” instead of a pencil. This works quite well for circular cut outs. The circle cutter won't cut the hole all the way through, you'll need to end the task which has a utility knife.

Rotary cutting tool :

The rotary cutting tools are utilized on new construction almost only for electrical outlets and cutouts. When working with this device, flip off the electrical power to the area(s) and be incredibly cautious to avoid nicking / hitting any wires with the tool. You really do not want any slice or bare wires that will short circuit out afterwhen the electrical power is restored towards the box.

Ideally, when working on new residence construction, the wires will not be live and the switches or electrical outlets will not be installed yet, the wires in the box at that stage of building, could be pushed to the back of your box without fearing of getting electrecuted. The rotary cutting instrument depth is set to go just in the drywall and no deeper, making it easy to chop the openings without the chancing nicking or cutting any wires.

How To Cut Drywall

Sep 13, 2011