What’s the secret to concealing butt seams in drywall? My seams always look like bumps in the wall.
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A good drywall finisher will float a butt joint out unitl it's 24 inches wide to hide the bump. It's a lot of work and hard to do well.
One technique is to make the butt joint between studs and use a "butt joiner" that the ends are screwed to and which flexes them back a bit to create a depression for the tape and mud.
All that the other guys said, and.... You must tell yourself that sanding isn't necessary. You must use the trowel or knife only. That way, you will develop the skill necessary to float out a joint. If you rely on sanding, you'll never get there.
Many people will never develop the skill to do quite as you say, but a newbie can do pretty well if he remembers that it's easier to add mud than to sand it off.
Often an amateur will attempt to get by with two coats of mud, but attempting this will often result in too much mud being applied and lumps that will never quite sand away. Rather, apply the minimum possible with each coat. And, rather than sanding between, scrape any small lumps off the wall with a broadknife.
Button nailing.
A good tecnique for beginners is button nailing. Put a 1" or 1.25" roofing nail along the but joint ever 2 inches or so. Nail them down tight and they will depress the seam slightly. Don't put them through the paper, keep them between the two sheets. As you become more confident about finishing you can stop doing this.
Sanding is for the most part a waste of time. Using topping mud after the first coat speeds things up alot, because thin coats of topping dry very quickly in all but the most humid situation.
I see a lot of guys who feather out a joint wide enough, but it has a rather noticeable pointed crown right over the joint (not enough mud to both sides of the crown), which makes it visable. The secret is to develop a method of self checking progress as the coats of mud go on.
Getting in the habit of checking joints by placing a clean knife perpendicular to the surface as a straight edge right on the center of the joint as well as to both sides will show the shape your joint is getting. Pay attention to how much of a gap is on both outer edges of the 12" knife blade. 1/8" is too much, 1/16" may work if the lighting in that area isn't too harsh. For smoothwall with harsh light you definitely can't get away with 1/16". The crown has to be wide and not pointed. Personally, I don't do sheetrock every week so the best results are with curved trowels rather than knives since it's much easier to get a nice wide crown on joints.
Another thing you can do before texture is add a nice coat of paint or primer which will highlight any irregularities, which you can then touchup. Along the same lines get good lights and use them! Anytime I see someone taping in dim light it's a sure sign there will be a lot of touchups.
If you have an extra sheetrock square it makes a perfect joint checking tool if you cut the 48" leg down to 4" or 6" for use as a handle. I've always picked up extra work correcting bad joints left by others and this tool is the first thing I grab when figuring out what to do. It's also the first tool I grab when checking drywall that hasn't been taped yet to make a game plan to deal with problem areas.