Spackle is a versatile and durable material used to fill imperfections and smooth surfaces. It can be applied to wood, metal, or other materials and can be painted or stained to match the surrounding area. For exterior repairs, it is essential to use spackle where deep scratches and gouges appear in the wood. Heavy-duty spackle can also be used on exterior surfaces like concrete or stucco to repair larger cracks or holes.
For a reliable, long-lasting option, latex-based DAP spackle can be used to repair large or small holes, both inside and outside. It dries in over 15 minutes and can be applied two layers if the patch is more than 1/4-inch deep. Acrylic-fortified spackle can be used for exterior applications, but first prime the area.
Spackling compound, a paste used to fill imperfections and smooth surfaces, comes in lightweight and heavy options. Lightweight spackling paste, made of gypsum powder and binders, is suitable for patching cracks, small holes, and dents in drywall, plaster, and wood. It can come in a pre-mixed paste form and can be used to fill more than just drywall.
DAP DRYDex Spackling is a superior quality exterior spackling paste for patching and repairs on wood, masonry, and stucco. Its ready-to-use formula spreads easily and is ideal for all size repairs. While lightweight spackling is ideal for smaller holes and dents in drywall, heavyweight spackling, such as DryDex, can be used on all size repairs.
📹 SPACKLE Vs. DRYWALL MUD/JOINT COMPOUND (What’s the Difference? When Should You Use Them?!)
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Can you spackle over water damage?
To repair drywall damage, use joint compound or Spackle, a Putty knife, Drywall knife, Utility knife, Sanding sponge, and Sturdy step ladder. For water-damaged areas, cut out the affected area with a new piece of drywall, a tape measure, a pen, Drywall saw, Drywall tape, Drywall screws, and a Power drill. Other necessary tools include a new piece of drywall, tape measure, pencil, marker, Drywall saw, Drywall tape, Drywall screws, and Power drill.
What can spackle be used for?
Spackle is a compound made of gypsum powder and binders used to patch small holes, cracks, and imperfections in drywall, plaster walls, and wood. It comes in powdered or paste form, with paste being the most commonly used. Spackle® is a registered trademark, but it is often used to describe spackling compound. Joint compound is a similar product used to cover joints between wallboard panels and fasteners and screws used to attach wallboard to studs. It is better for repairing larger holes and damage that requires backing or other reinforcement.
To prepare the spackling spot, clean and smooth out the area around the hole or crack to optimize adhesion. Use a putty knife to gently scrape away loose paint and protruding fragments of wallboard until the surface around the hole is as smooth as the rest of the wall. Be careful not to make the hole or crack bigger, as you will be painting over the spackling compound once it’s dried. Press the putty knife against the wall at an angle and scrape up and down until dust and debris stop falling.
Fine-grit sandpaper is also helpful for smoothing down the surface around a hole if there are not too many fragments or a protruding outer edge.
What is the difference between spackle and putty?
Spackle and putty are effective for filling holes, cracks, or imperfections in drywall. Spackle is a more suitable material for filling small holes and cracks, while putty is better for fixing larger damaged areas due to its flexural properties. Spackle dries rapidly and is appropriate for use in areas with high moisture content. In contrast, putty is a superior choice for repairing damaged wood due to its flexural characteristics.
How strong is spackling?
Spackle is a versatile material used for filling in small damaged areas on walls, such as dings, dents, and nail holes. It dries faster than joint compound, typically within half an hour, and is thicker and harder to spread. Its binding agent, combined with gypsum powder, makes it more elastic and less likely to crack or shrink when dried. Although slightly more expensive, it can be completed with just one coat, unlike joint compound which may require several coats.
Various types of spackling compounds are available, including lightweight, standard, vinyl, acrylic, and epoxy. Lightweight spackling compounds contain fine aggregate with sodium silicate and an adhesive, while standard spackling compounds are gypsum-based and can be used on different surfaces or outdoors. Each type has its own advantages and disadvantages, making it a versatile and cost-effective solution for various repair jobs.
Is spackle the same as putty?
Spackle and putty are effective for filling holes, cracks, or imperfections in drywall. Spackle is a more suitable material for filling small holes and cracks, while putty is better for fixing larger damaged areas due to its flexural properties. Spackle dries rapidly and is appropriate for use in areas with high moisture content. In contrast, putty is a superior choice for repairing damaged wood due to its flexural characteristics.
When should you not use spackle?
Joint compound is a lightweight, water-based compound that is ideal for small nail holes but not for large drywall gaps. It comes in small tubes and dries through evaporation of its water content, allowing for quicker moisture removal. Spackle, a lightweight, water-based compound, has a faster drying process of about 30 minutes for most small repairs. On the other hand, plaster, made from gypsum or lime, is heavier and denser and takes longer to dry due to a chemical reaction. Some joint compound options, like hot mud, have shorter drying times than average drywall mud.
Can I use spackle to fill a hole?
Spackle is a material that is comparable to drywall filler or drywall joint compound. It is utilized for the purpose of repairing minor holes or cracks in walls. Priming is required prior to painting with high-gloss paint. The drying time for spackle is dependent on environmental conditions and can range from one to five hours. Spackle is capable of filling holes up to 1/2-inch in diameter; however, larger holes that lack a backing material may collapse.
What is the difference between spackle and filler?
When choosing a wood filler or spackle for a project, consider the material, size of the repair, and product reviews. Wood filler is ideal for filling holes in hardwood floors or furniture, while spackle is suitable for drywall repairs. For larger holes in drywall, consider joint compound or patch, while epoxy wood filler is suitable for deeper holes. Check product reviews on platforms like Amazon to understand drying times, ease of use, and final product finish.
When should you use spackle?
Joint compound is suitable for taping or finishing drywall, but spackle is preferred for repairing or filling holes in drywall. Spackle dries faster than joint compound, allowing for sanding and painting within an hour. It also doesn’t shrink as much as joint compound, which requires multiple layers of application due to mud shrinking. If you don’t have spackle, joint compound can still be used for filling holes. Spackle is ideal for drywall repairs due to its faster drying time.
Is exterior spackle waterproof?
White spackling paste is suitable for both exterior and interior use due to its waterproof, mold, and mildew-resistant formula. Prior to use, the material should be mixed gently and applied in layers for repairs exceeding 1/8 inch in depth. Each layer should be allowed to dry before applying the subsequent layer.
Can you use exterior filler on wood?
Exterior wood fillers such as epoxy resin are appropriate for use in outdoor environments and on outdoor wooden structures, including window cills, doors, playground equipment, wooden sculptures, and benches. These fillers are capable of withstanding extreme weather conditions without hardening during application or cracking or shrinking once dry.
📹 How to Use DAP Fast ‘N Final Lightweight Spackling to Patch a Hole
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I’ve been studying how to do various diy jobs around the house and was getting so confused because there are so many different words for the same materials and also slightly different materials. Mud, joint compound, spackling, plaster, sheetrock, drywall….aaaaahhhh! Came here to say how appreciative I am of this article. It was so very helpful and well-written. I need things explained to me like I’m five, but without the sarcasm and belittlement, which you’ve done very tastefully. Thank you!
I’ve just been through several articles on Plaster of Paris and then saw your article on spackle. Wow, the difference in presentation was amazing! I couldn’t listen to them for more than 1 minute! Some should not be making articles!! I’m a get to it person, who likes a pleasing voice, intelligent and accurate information, helpful tips and thorough know.edge of the product and how to use it. One person said to fill the plastic cup ” up to the black line” ??? Huh? Actually I’m in need of filling a spot where paint came off from a Command strip so the Gods knew just what I needed!! You’re the absolute best and my go to for all projects!!
First time mounting a TV hiding the wires, but I wanted to do as much research I can before digging in ny drywall. I’ve came to accept that ima have to make another hole to get through the horizontal fire beam thing. I was gonna buy that mud thankfully you put me into the spackle. Highly appreciate it
a great sneaky trick for small repairs on textured walls: a red window squeegee will clean whatever repair material you are using out of the existing texture, and depending on the size of the repair and type of texture, it will either not need textured, or you can apply texture from whatever texturing device you want. I did a lot of no-sand repairs while I was learning that trick.
Superb article which helped me finally understand the difference between these products. I have a question. My recently-purchased condo has no backsplash behind the bathroom sink, and the wall area about an inch above the back of the sink is getting damp and crumbling, so I need to repair an area about 2′ x 2″. I plan to dry it out, plaster, and apply adhesive wall tiles for the time being. In this application, which type of spackle would you recommend?
I put a lot of holes in sheetrock installing business phone systems. Always made sure where the studs were, metal or wood, then would ask the customer if they were sure they wanted their wall phone “there”. When they said yes, I would pop a hole with my hammer, the customer was usually shocked, but I reassured them the phone & it’s wall bracket / mounting plate would cover the hole and all was good.
Very good. When you noted that spackle is essentially for smaller repairs, that was paramount. I have done a lot of repairs of plaster and drywall over the past 45 years or so. I am a DYI-er, but would like to think that I have above DYI skills. Maybe not by much, but a little. I worked for a painting contractor during my college years and the first few summers after college. He taught me quite a bit. Your article is quite timely as I am going to patch some holes in my son’s basement way. As it has been a couple years since my last efforts, I was pondering which product to use. Now…..I don’t have to think too much. I will just do as you instruct/suggest. Thank you.
If you’re working on old horse-hair-plaster over lath: digging out cracks, repairing large holes, etc- you’ll want something like plaster of Paris. Netting tape can also be helpful (I’ve used it after digging out cracked plaster corners..ceiling to floor.) you must work FAST with this stuff, make tiny batches, dig your cracks out deep enough & vaccum! Let neurotic perfectionism take the wheel.
All purpose Joint compound is just that, for joints when you’re taping or small holes, it’s the same as sparkle they are both similar the only different between the two is that one dries quicker lime plaster on the other hand is harder than both joint compounds and absorbs moisture better than both, you can skim coat a whole wall with lime plaster and be sure that it will be more smoother than both other compounds because they are porous like crumbling gypsum sheetrock
From the UK and I’m really struggling with translating these into UK English. I know what we call plasterboard you call drywall. But from that point on, no idea. We have (lightweight) filler for small holes etc. Can be premixed or powder. There are heavier duty fillers such as Toupret, more resilient used for filling holes in wood, but not epoxy. In UK we skimcoat the whole of a plasterboarded wall or ceiling, over tape which is only used for adding strength to certain joints, not sure we even have a ‘mud’ equivalent. Looks like runny plaster to me, although our plaster is pink. When I say WE I mean trades, I am just a DIYer and observer of experts.
What you fail to differentiate is the difference in bucket mud vs dry powder compound. The dry stuff will virtually not shrink and it will not crack when applied in large have amounts, it is more related to plaster than joint compound. Bucket mud has more adhesives and is premixed and shrinks a lot. So for tiny repairs dry bagged mud is perfectly fine and will not shrink, plus it stores for a very long time, much longer than a little pale of spackle paste, and cost probably the same or less.
Excellent article as always! Had this been published about a week ago I would’ve shown this article to the homeowner of the house I’m currently painting to better explain to them why I was using hot mud to fix some of the holes in their walls instead of spackling because I’m not always that great at explaining things to people, especially when they’ve exacerbated me. 😅
New sub here 😊 I have an 18″ high kitchen backsplash of glass and Stone Mesh-Mounted Mosaic tiles. I don’t like it and was thinking about covering it with compound and then painting it. I don’t expect a perfect smooth surface and like the idea of it being a bit uneven. My questions are, would I need to prep the tiles for the compound to stick, if so, what would be the prep? Also, what would be the best paint considering it’s a kitchen backsplash? I’d appreciate your input.
FYI The “Easy Sand” is the go-to for me for any drywall repair. It dries based on the number. So “Easy Sand 5” – will dry in 5 minutes – very little working time before it hardens on you. I use Easy Sand 45, it will allow you to patch big and small. With the short dry time, it will allow you to sand in between coats and you can make different consistency mud for different coats. Depending on time frame you could patch and paint all in the same day without issues.
You mentioned the fast dry powdered mud but didn’t say anything about it’s properties. I regularly have to repair bigger holes, such as those left by a door knob slammed into a wall, or places where a plumbing repair needed to be made. I use the 20 minute stuff because it sets before it dries, so it doesn’t shrink. This means I don’t need as many layers, though I still need to let it dry between coats.
Thank you. Things like this are simple and obvious to pros but terribly confusing to a beginning DIYer. Walking down the aisle at the home store and seeing the dizzying array of products is enough to scare a lot of people off a project. Or lead them to just guess at what they need make the project harder.
My daughter’s house has plaster walls (over 100 years old) and there is a patch of broken off plaster that is about 3′ x 5′. It is only about 1/32 of an inch thick. There is still solid plaster under it. Wondering what is the best way to patch this with a skim coat? Is joint compound or plaster of paris good? Do I need a bonding agent to put on first? Thanks.
for my big patching jobs, and old Plaster walls with a few deep cracks and holes, “LePage Polyfilla Spackling Big Hole Repair” easily filled them all in one coat, has great adhesion, doesn’t shrink at all, and is easy to sand, feather, ready for primer, and paint, and I didn’t even need any other drywall compound. – The only caveat is that it takes a bit longer to dry, and is more expensive than the avg. drywall compound.
People with textured walls, dont use a putty knife to fill your holes! As a painting contractor, I see people do this all the time. It flattens out your texture, which would need sanding, and a texture to repair. Fill the hole ONLY, not the area around it. Use a small amount on the tip of your finger and push the spackle/caulking into the hole. Use a wet rag to wipe around the edges leaving the hole filled slightly higher, to account for shrinkage. For bigger holes, you’ll probably want a knife. But smaller nail/screw holes, KEEP IT SMALL!
What would you recommend using to fill in the lines on wood panel walls when trying to give an old wall a makeover? I have seen articles where people fill the lines with joint compound, wood glue and water mixture, and caulk. Not sure what to use to prevent cracking. Should you use joint tape on lines in wood walls to make them look like drywall? Thank you!
Ahh, but what one makes the best “Frosting”?! 😂 Been using lightweight spackle for fake baked goods, using it as frosting and ice cream, I add flour to LW Spackle & it thickens it to a scooped ice cream texture. A friend of mine suggested using Durabond instead, but I have a feeling he didn’t understand why I use spackle… It’s the consistency I need, that light fluffy cake frosting kind. When I seen a article of a kid smashing a large pile of dried Durabond, it looks more like Plaster of Paris and I thought Hmm, I’m glad I didn’t buy the durabond…. It doesn’t seem like the same consistency of Lightweight spackle at all. Then I seen another product called Structo-Lite and that sounded more like something I could use, but I’m still not sure. Lightweight spackle is getting expensive and the last bucket I bought, I lost the receipt for and the whole bucket was bad. It smelled funky, was separated and molded when I used it. I was so mad, they wouldn’t take it back. Even if I had the receipt, I hadn’t used it right away bc I still had some in my other bucket, so I didn’t open it for at least 2-3 months after I bought it but it still should not have been bad. I was hoping for a powder I can mix to my own consistency instead of using flour too.
I am having some failures when I try and put on my final “top coat” using joint compounds like General Purpose and the lighter weight “topping” compounds made for doing final coat. The final coat I put on is actually tearing down into the spackle, leaving holes the size of a nickel up to over a half dollar size. So damn frustrating. On inspection it looks like the DAP spackle I am using ( like the Fast and Final in the article) is actually delaminating and pulling off the wall when I go to trowel the final coat using joint compound. And yea it’s plenty dried out enough, like days old. Anyone got any suggestions on this? Can you not mix the two into the process of applying several coats during a repair? Oh and that’s 100 percent of what I am doing right now. Thanks for any suggestions
I have a fist sized hole in a plaster wall with nothing behind it. I did not punch my plaster wall, ouch lol. It was an accident. Anyways, it’s hollow behind, but the wall itself is thick so I’m pretty positive it’s plaster, or maybe sheet rock? It’s hard as a rock and very durable and I can hardly push a thumbtack into it. I was thinking of putting a piece of wood behind and center of the hole and drilling it in place. Then putting a piece of drywall in the hole (cut to its measurements) then spackling over it. Will this work?
I had to remove some tiles in a bathroom – the backing is concrete board and it’s still pristine. I’m wondering if I can fill in the p(laces where the tiles were with something like plaster, or spackle, or joint compound? I’d just mix it thick, trowel it in, then smooth it with a sponge. The holes are small, less than 2″. What say ye?
So, I have two screw holes in a wall where I’m trying to mount a shelf bracket. I mounted it crooked the first time and decided to try an fix it. Pulled out the screws and the anchors, speckled it, let it dry, tried to redrill some pilot holes, and now I have slightly bigger holes in my wall. What’s the best way to fix that such that I can screw into it again? Do I just need to do a drywall patch over that spot?
I’ve been using the dap spackly that is pink dries to white. I hate it it is like working with gummy play doh or something, it dries very quickly so it gets gummier to work as it dries. Hate it taking it back and getting something else. I don’t know if this pick stuff is supposed to be quicker drying? It does not say on the label it is. Does anyone know?
I used a light weight spackle to fill small nail holes and bullnose corner damage around the house. When you look straight at the repairs after I painted them, you can’t tell where they are but when the light reflects off the walls you can see every one of them. I used paint left from the previous homeowner which may be as much as ten years old. I wonder what I did wrong. Seems like the spackle is too porous and keeps soaking up the paint and dries flatter than the rest of the areas around the repairs I attempted to blend in. I ruined the whole house😭
Thank you for explaining a lot of my new homeowner questions. I bought a new home from a cheap builder (LGI HOMES) it’s 2 years old and they cut corners and made a lot of mistakes. I’m having to repair water damaged exterior door frames already. There are a ton of wall/ceiling cracks they came in and caulked. Floors that won’t stay down. Cold air coming in through electrical outlets. Gaps and holes in the exterior caulking around doors and windows and who knows what else I haven’t found yet. Your articles help.
I used Spackle last week on a closet renovation because we ran out of drywall mud. It had the consistency of Playdough and wouldn’t thin out with water like drywall mud does. I squeegeed it onto the wall and let it dry overnight. There were lots of rough areas and holes on the long 8’ seam patches. I patched as much of the rough areas as I could, and painted it white to hide the flaws in the back of the closet.
What would you recommend for sealing up long cracks indoors? I have an ant problem in my rented house and I’m trying to solve it. The yard is the main issue and I’m currently taking care of that with a lawn powder that seems to be working well. However, for those last few annoying ants left crawling throughout all the cracks of my closet and bathroom I’m not sure what to use. I was thinking of using expanding foam to seal the cracks but the holes I’m trying cover up are too small and narrow for that foam stuff as it expands and gets way too big. I’m thinking of using spackle to spread across the long cracks, some of which are about a foot long or longer. Anyone here have any suggestions about what I should use?
Ive been using standard spackle my whole life but recently switched to lightweight spackle because I thought it was superior. It was an absolute disaster. I wouldn’t use it for anything bigger than a nail hole. When I went to go sand it it was coming off in chunks. It was still wet and pliable weeks later. I have no idea what happened but I had to remove it all and much of the drywall paper too. Now I have to seal it all and use regular spackle again.
I have rental properties. Tenants love to use walls for bulletin boards and put hundreds (no exaggeration) of pin holes in walls. I found light weight spackling works best to fill them. I keep a small hand sized tub. After dipping my finger in the spackling, I apply it to the hole. Then wipe the area with another finger. The hole disappears (if the walls are painted white).