adhering cove base or skirting

[strip buster]

Jim, i didn't know where to put this so i threw it here.;
after seeing how you guys install base(we call skirting and ours comes in 35 yd rolls) on that you tube vid -commercial install- first i thought why don't you contact it,quicker stronger and no profile then i thought why don't you use boa tape, i'm all the way over here and i use it for base.....why bother with all that glue or what ever it was he was putting on.?

[Jim McClain]

Good topic. I never used that rolled cove base... oh, maybe I did once or twice a really long time ago, but I don't remember it. All the base I installed was 4' and I tried really hard to use only Burke base because it did corners really well.

Contact cement is noxious stuff, so I only used it on outside corners. Using acrylic adheasive from a 30oz. cartridge was pretty fast for me. BoaTape wasn't around at that time, so I never had a chance to try that stuff. By the way, BoaTape is one of our sponsors and they now have a new distributor: Boa Tape

I think you and a lot of our other members prob'ly did much bigger base jobs than I ever got involved in - although I did a high school job that was one of my biggest projects and it went well and we finished ahead of schedule.

Jim

[strip buster]

b4 this tape, i would unroll and use a paint tray full of contact with a 100mm roller and do the skirt(base)that way and for walls use a painters'cutting in' roller (perfect height) now just unroll skirt tape it and install. prolly savin 1/2 time and cost is more but that would be shippin to where i am.

[kylenelson]

Boa Tape works great for corners IMO. But, much to expensive to do the whole length of the base with it. The only way I would do it is if I was getting paid another .20 a foot. Doing the whole length in contact isn't a bad idea, I just can't see how it would be that much faster. Have you ever used an battery operated caulking gun? It works wonders for spreading base adhesive. If you have any large amount it's definitely worth the investment.
They look like this---> Milwaukee Electric 6562-21 - 14.4 Volt Caulk/Adhesive Gun with 10 oz. Carriage Kit MWK-6562-21 MWK6562-21 MWK 6562-21 They have the bigger 30 oz ones as well.

[strip buster]

this is what i can't get my head around... why caulk....so thick and sloppy. our skirt shows a grain just like vinyl so how do you achieve the correct finish without uniform?

[kylenelson]

There are cove base spreader nozzles that put three beads of the adhesive onto the base. I use a damp white rag to spread and even out the base adhesive once it's been set back up onto the wall. This works to give a nice uniform amount on the back of the rubber base. Most people use contact or hot glue for the corners.

[BrianM]

strip buster said Jim, i didn't know where to put this so i threw it here.; after seeing how you guys install base(we call skirting and ours comes in 35 yd rolls) on that you tube vid -commercial install- first i thought why don't you contact it,quicker stronger and no profile then i thought why don't you use boa tape, i'm all the way over here and i use it for base.....why bother with all that glue or what ever it was he was putting on.?

*
That's really NOT how we install cove base strip buster. I'm sure many of the residential guys have their peculiar "tricks" for whatever amount of cove base they run up against but I assure you that in large commercial work there are certain very standard techniques that do not resemble what that guy was doing. That guy on the video might just as well have come from Mars as far as anything I've ever seen and commercial work is all I do.

Typically guys use notched putty knives as some here mentioned and the glue comes in 4 gallon plastic pail that we lay on a dolly. It's faster to apply the adhesive directly to the wall, especially if the base comes in 100' rolls. In that case it's really a necessity to paste the wall to get any kind of production. But most of our base comes in 4' pieces. Depending on the conditions many guys apply the adhesive to the back of the piece. It's a little slower but when the walls require tucking, trimming, extra filling with glue and then some extra finesse to work out the wobbles, dips and humps sometimes it's better for the quality of the job to do one piece at a time without the rush of adhesive setting up too quickly.

On an ideal job with long, clean, new walls you'd almost always be smearing glue on 50-100 foot of wall out ahead of you and then drop back and set the base. With the adhesive we use there's no difficulty working corners in the wet glue. It's white acrylic like a ceramic wall mastic and wipes up very easily with a damp rag.

Seriously, with just a handful of exceptions in 32 years I've never used contact cement, 2-face tape, a heat gun or hot melt glue. That's rookie stuff dude. I mean REALLY a bad sign of inexperience. It'd probably get you laid off the first day in a commercial shop where they were paying you hourly. You need to gouge out and bend your corners so they are molded correctly. Glue is not the issue. There's nothing more to adhering a properly formed corner than slapping a little glue on the wall AND the piece. Then you take a few extra seconds to work the rubber or vinyl around the bend. With the Burke brand base that Jim mentioned the material makes such easy and perfect corners it's not even necessary to "double" paste the corners. Most other brands of base are less rubber-like/flexible and much more plastic/brittle in character. These brands are a little more awkward to handle as they don't love to "hug" the wall up at the top. Extra care must be taken with the plastic garbage to get the top of the piece to hold onto the wall as it tends to want to curl off because of the generally poor quality and design of that material in comparison to Burke which is simply how base should work. On jobs where I can easily get 1100-1200 feet of Burke rubber base installed in an 8 hour day to get a vinyl or plastic base looking good on the same walls you're looking at 700-800 feet tops. It's just a slower process to work with plastic. Vinyl IS plastic.

[kylenelson]

Out of curiousity Brian, how do you gouge your corners? With a gouge or by hand? I'll admit that I'm no commercial guy and probably install cove base 2 times a month and usually not in large quantities.

And have you ever used one of those guns I linked to above" I'm sure you're pretty confident you can go faster with a putty knife. But, the gun will apply adhesive faster than I can walk down the wall.

[strip buster]

likewise usin some sort of paste would get you laughed back to the states. i don't see how you say contact is rookie stuff dude,paste would be inferior to contact,slower and messier and if your using it to fill a plasterers faulty wall then you are fixing some one elses problem at your own expense.we demand a smooth solid wall or we walk.contact doesn't profile and i don't need a rag to clean up cause there is nothing to clean up.if you haven't tried it(in 35yrs)then you don't see the benifits.....old dog new tricks etc.

[Barry Carlton]

I agree with Brian. But I was union trained as well.
We never used contact unless it was on corners that had small returns 4 inches or less. Now I use D-815 on those. We always used a cove base gun back in the day. Now I use the 3 inch nozzle with an acrylic adhesive. I too can do 1000 feet plus on a large job pretty easily. In the union they only expect 80 feet an hour in the early '80's. And they figured about 80 feet of base per tube of adhesive.

Do you scribe you inside corners or wrap them. I prefer wrapped if the walls are plumb.

[strip buster]

wrap, ther only break in the skirt is to start a new roll.mostly we use feather edge skirt.i do 95% commercial and usually requires skirt after job so this rookie uses it every day.

[kylenelson]

For me wrapping or scribing depends on the walls. I've seen more wrapped corners pull away from the walls than scribed corners shrink. If the walls are really bad I will wrap, but if they're fine I will scribe.

[kwfloors]

Has anyone read the directions for doing base?

[kylenelson]

Yep, but I don't know anyone that will allow the base to be unrolled and laying flat for 24 hours. Also they say to use a 1/8 trowel and apply to the back of the base. Also say not to gouge more than 1/4 the thickness of the base. That would make for some tough going on corners.

Here's a link to Ray Thompson's cove base article in FCI. How to Install Coved Wall Base - Archives - Floor Covering Installer He sticks pretty close to reccomended procedures but suggest a deeper gouge on the corners.

[Barry Carlton]

kwfloors said Has anyone read the directions for doing base?

Roppe: http://www.roppe.com/documents/vinyl...all%20Base.pdf

Burke: http://www.burkeflooring.com/wallbas...structions.pdf