Digital Image
Digital Image
Digital Image
Digital Image
Digital Image
Digital Image
OK, a lot of technical stuff coming up, and a little hard to follow, but I will do my best to explain. Here I am hanging a faux-leather, textured paper-backed solid vinyl wallpaper with no pattern to match. In the left side of the first photo, I have just come from left to right around an outside corner. When you wrap wallpaper around a corner, you can bet that the corner will not be straight or plumb and the wall may even be bowed. That means that you cannot expect the right edge of this strip of wallpaper to be straight, and that means that you cannot expect the next strip of wallpaper to butt up perfectly against it.
Since this paper has no pattern to match, the solution is simple, if not easy. I am going to overlap the next strip and splice it in with the previous strip. But you don’t want to just overlap and slice through both layers with a razor blade. Doing so could: 1.) get paste on the surface of the first strip, which, since it’s a textured paper, would be hard to wipe off, and, 2.) score the wall, and that means that when the paper dries, it shrinks and puts “torque” on the seam / surface – and that could cause the surface to pull away from the the subsurface – keep in mind that here we have Sheetrock, paint, new paint, and wallpaper primer, one on top of another, so there are several layers that can all pull apart from one another. To put is succinctly, the end result is a curled seam – which cannot be glued back down.
So, in the first photo, in preparation for the double cut (splice), I have put a “Boggess pad,” which is a long flexible strip of polystyrene plastic under the seam, to protect the wall. You see a bit of it peeking out on the right side of the photo, and you see the ridge it makes under the paper in the center of the photo.
On the right side of the second photo is the new strip of wallpaper, coming to meet the existing strip. Along the edge of this new strip of wallpaper is a strip of waxed paper, and you can see some of it sticking out on the left edge. This waxed paper will protect the existing strip of wallpaper from the paste that is on the new strip of wallpaper.
In the third photo, the metal tool with the pointy top on the left is a special straight edge that I use for cuts like this. I have already made the cut along its edge, and you can see both the cut and the waxed paper on the left side of the cut. You can see a little bit of the hump created by the polystyrene strip under the vinyl paper, on the right.
In the fourth photo, I have pulled the vinyl strip on the right back a little, so I can pull off the waxed paper from under it. The polystyrene strip is still against the wall, under the vinyl paper on the left. I am about to remove that, too.
All this has taken some time, and another factor playing in here is “open time,” which means how long the paste will stay wet and allow you to fiddle with all this.
In Photo 5, I am about to smooth the two edges of the seam back together.
In Photo 6, you see how perfectly the edges meet. A double cut (splice) really gives you the most perfect seams, because the two pieces of paper are truly melded together. It does take a lot of time and materials, though, and is not really called for except in certain situations.
This room turned out looking great, and the homeowners were pleased. The homeowner did ask me why my price was higher than the guy who had hung paper in another room. From what I saw, the other installer did a good job in that room.
But I’m wondering if he has knowledge of primers and layers of wall surfaces and torque and open time, and if he has waxed paper on his truck and knows when to use it, and if he has a special $125 trim guide and knows how to use it, and if he has ever heard of a Boggess strip or if he just cuts into the wall and hopes it all holds together.
Bottom line … sometimes special situations call for special tools and equipment and skills.
Not saying another guy couldn’t do it his way and have it turn out looking great.
Just saying I’m glad I have these gadgets to use, and the know-how to use them to keep the homeowner’s wallpaper clean and unwrinkled.
Tags: boggess strip, double-cut, open time, splice, torque, vinyl, wallpaper, waxed paper
The Wallpaper Lady's Blog 
June 1, 2015 at 4:12 pm |
As a fellow wallpaper hanger, I really enjoy your posts. I live and work in the Charleston area in South Carolina. My father, who was taught by his grandfather, passed away about three years ago. He and I worked together from the time I was a young kid, and luckily was equipped if not prepared to take over when he died. It is comforting to see someone else out there dealing with the same issues, and being a successful wallpaper hanger! Thanks!
Jesse Coopersmith
PS where did you get your Boggess pad?
March 19, 2016 at 11:14 pm |
I’ve never heard of a Boggess pad but when my father taught me we always used a 2in piece of vinyl under the seam to protect the wall