Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Removing mortar from drywall
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lochdoc
06-30-09, 06:05 PM
My girlfriend and I are tiling our bathroom walls. She got a little crazy with the mortar and now I have to try to get it off of the green board we were using as a backer. How can I remove the excess dried mortar without damaging the drywall or tiles? Should I do this before or after I grout and seal the rest of the tile?
HotinOKC
06-30-09, 07:20 PM
Little more information needed. This is not a shower wall, is it? Greenboard should not be used in a shower. If not shower, then are you speaking of the dried thinset between the tiles in the grout joint? If so, I would try and remove as much of that as you can. If you have thinset oozing up in the joints, then it tends to show through the grout.
Let us know exactly what you are dealing with.
Let us know exactly what you are dealing with.
lochdoc
07-01-09, 02:54 PM
No, it's not in the shower. She applied the thinset mortar about 3 inches above the highest row of tile. It is a patch about 3 inches high by 12 inches long and about 1/8 to 1/4 inches thick. Basically the tile stops, but the mortar is spread above it. It could have been wiped off, but was left to dry. The spaces between the tile are fine.
HotinOKC
07-01-09, 04:13 PM
Gotcha. You could try a putty knife with some light tapping of a hammer to get the thinset off. If that don't work out to well, you could try a sander, but wear eye glasses and a dust mask.
lochdoc
07-01-09, 05:24 PM
I tried using a razor scraper but that took off some of the paper on the drywall. I'll try a putty knife and if that doesn't work I'll break out the sander and dust mask and hope for the best.
Thanks for the help.
Thanks for the help.
marksr
07-02-09, 04:56 AM
Scraping and sanding works great for minor amounts of errant thinset. If you wind up with the paper face of the drywall missing - prime those areas with zinnser's gardz or any decent oil base primer. That will seal the gypsum so you can apply joint compound over the low areas without any problems.