Gib-stopping and carpal tunnel
Home » Blog » Judy Sutherland » Gib-stopping and carpal tunnelTiling done, let the gib-stopping begin!
With tiles successfully, and almost painlessly, laid I am ready to tackle my next learning curve: gib-stopping. The joints, nail holes, screw holes and other miscellaneous mysterious holes scattered about each sheet of gib need to be filled and smoothed with joint compound (herewith called “goo”) which resembles a sloppy plaster-of-paris.
I start with the easy bits: the holes. Not a problem—apply the goo with spatula, whoops, I mean broadknife and scrape off excess while pushing goo into hole. The goo is putty in my hands, I make great progress and soon room number one is hole-less.
Now to begin the bigger part of the job: the joints. Take one large trowel-like tool, load up with goo, hold in left hand and grasp smaller smoothing tool (probably the chamfered broad knife) in right hand. Scoop some goo onto broadknife and apply thickly to indentation in wall. Continue in same manner until one strip of wall is now plastered white. Lovely! Wipe goo off nose with sleeve but don’t worry about the stuff that plopped onto floor as that’s concrete and can be cleaned up later. (Later, goo on floor has set solid—oops!)
Stage three: Scrape any remaining goo off trowel back into bucket, reposition trowel in right hand and scrape surface of gib with sharp side of trowel. Nice one! The surface is semi-flat—for a first go I think I’m not too bad.
I quite enjoy this experience. There is some sort of satisfaction in filling in holes and making something complete… or is it that this goo is reminiscent of play-dough, or mud?
Once the joins are filled satisfactorily I move on to the corners. I take an angled tool instead of the broadknife and apply a thick layer of goo to an inside corner. Special reinforced tape is pushed into the corner and more goo applied. The angled knife is run down the corner, excess goo oozes out and the tape sticks—easy as! But why is it bubbling halfway up? More goo, more scraping and eventually I decide it’s acceptable.
On the external corners, somehow the corners are not entirely true—oh well, it’s only a shed! I need to state categorically here that hubby Jim is in fact an excellent builder. He has built many houses and never has a problem with workmanship. But this is truly a shed (actually has a Code of Compliance for a hay-shed) and he probably didn’t put the walls in anyway—“the boys did those”!
After a few days and many hours of smearing goo onto walls and removing the surplus I notice my wrist was getting a little weary. When an active tennis player in my teens I wore a wrist band for support, so I presumed it was just the old weakness reappearing. A little moan to Jim and all is forgotten.
The goo dries into hard plaster-of-paris and then has to be sanded so the surface is sufficiently smooth to apply goo layer number two. I tackle the sandpaper on the end of the pole with vigour. Dust in my hair, up my nostrils, all over my clothes and face. I withstood comments from “the boys” and continued layering everything with the fine white dust.
That night Jim listened half-heartedly to a few more moans about a sore wrist—still no sympathy.
So I persist in my task. At some stage I realised that sanding is not my favourite part of the job. As all hard-workers know, meal breaks are essential. (I particularly enjoy those taken at a café and shared with a friend or two and a cappucino.) So when the tummy rumbled I departed on some necessary errand to an appropriate venue and rested the wrist.
On one of these particular errands I happened to be joined by an occupational therapist friend with whom I shared the not-so-small ache in said wrist. I soon received a call from a “hand-and-arm” physio at the hospital to whom I consequently paid a visit. Dr Wrist-Physio twisted and turned my wrist and came to the conclusion that I did indeed have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Uh-oh, no more gib-stopping for me … “Well, after I’ve finished current job”, I thought.
So, armed with exercises and a wrist brace, I continued to gib-stop our shed. Maybe not the wisest choice, but why should I let a simple unseen ailment put a halt to my endeavours?
My skills improved somewhat as I moved through the rooms (can’t say the same about my wrist), but as I peruse the finished, now painted, workmanship I can confidently say that I will not be gib-stopping our house.
Mon July 06, 2009 @ 05:22 PM
