Celing/Walls Different Knockdown Patterns-advice Needed

MCComplete

Trying to match knockdown texture patterns in rest of the house, I want to do a knockdown texture on the ceiling with bigger "splotches" while the walls will also be knockdown finish with smaller splotches. My question regards steps to get these patterns. I know how to adjust sprayer to get the different patterns but am not sure of timing and procedure to get the whole job done( celing and walls).
Should I mask off walls so that when I texture the celing, no texture gets on walls and then later when ceiling dries, tape off ceiling and do the walls? Or is there another way to do this?
I am wanting to do texturizing right away, so hope I can get some suggestions. Thanks

Mike Finley

No masking required, I'd do the walls first then the ceiling since the over splatter from the ceiling won't be that noticeable at all on the walls based on the pattern you are trying to use.

On the ceiling mix up your mud thicker and lower the pressure on your compressor, on the walls mix up your mud thinner and increase the pressure on your compressor.

Buy wall and ceiling texture, don't use watered down drying compound.

MCComplete

Thanks Mike. I didn't think of doing the walls first. Would you let wall dry before doing ceiling? Also, when doing ceiling, there will be overspray blotches landing on the wall- how do you handle this? Should walls be completely dry before doing celing?

Mike Finley

You would most likely have to do them separately only because by the time you sprayed the walls, then got into spraying the ceiling with a different batch of mud the walls would probably be ready to knock down before you got done spraying the ceiling, then the ceiling would be ready to knock down before you were done knocking down the walls since ceilings dry way quicker than walls.

You could work out a way to do them both at the same time, such as mixing both your batches at the same time, and depending on how much square footages you are dealing with.

But I would hit the walls, knock them down, then hit the ceiling, knock it down.

The over splatter shouldn't be an issue from the ceiling to the walls since the wall pattern is made up of a smaller 'splotches', which will be what you will be getting for oversplatter anyways. Just knock them down into the walls at the same time you are knocking down the ceiling and they should blend right in.

(This advice is based on how I do this stuff, it wouldn't be an issue for us to do it this way, however if you really are just a mess and really suck at doing this, there is no telling what you might end up with trying to do it this way.) If you have at least average skills at texture you should be able to do it this way.

MCComplete

Thanks again Mike.
Since I am doing small area, I think I will go with spraying at same time.
I have Graco RTX1500 spray rig that really shoots out the stuff, but the beast takes almost a bucket of texture material to spray anything as the hoses are so large in diameter and it takes a lot of material going through before it comes out the spray end.
I was thinking on the ceiling I could use same mud (it would take too long to empty material from machine and get a new bactch going and would waste lots of material) but either hold gun a little farther from wall to get bigger splotches or change some settings. The nice thing about the rig is that it will deliver material to ceiling much better than the hand held hoppers I have used in past.

1KingOfDrywall

Trsut me friend, just jump in and do this one. I would suggest using the same batch of mud for starters.
hit the ceiling first, holding the gun low as possible with trigger fully pullled back, than simply fade into the angles with the trigger half pulled ((as if you were doing a heavy orange peal)). Wait til it's time and just knock it all down at once. When the job is 100% dry....take a beed of caulking around all the angles in the whole room.....it'll give it some definitive separation and it'll look sweet.
Good luck.....keep us posted.

MCComplete

I started project but had problems with I think too thin of texture mix. I used the metal ball sink test for checking thickness as recommended in the Graco RTX1500 manual but it sank in less than 3 seconds. This mix was probably too thin because I couldn't get machine adjusted right to get the splatter pattern I wanted. Tried different nozzles, air adjustment and volume of material adjustment, but material came out in big stream, or too fine, or not at all if I adjusted the air down too much. There are so many variables that affect the resulting spray. I had best result when I stood further away from the drywall.
I am going to try again tomorrow with thicker batch. Any suggestions from anyone familiar with this rig on spraying for knockdown and getting texture thickness right would be appreciated. This machine is so much more powerful than when I used a hand held hopper with my compressor. It requires so much texture just to fill up hose that there is so much waste if the mixture is wrong and you have to start over.
-Also, thanks to previous poster regarding suggestion on backing off trigger when making transistion from ceiling to wall.