This New Corner Bead Is Ideal for Multifamily Construction

In Chula Vista, Calif., where multifamily developments are being constructed as blazing fast speeds, drywall crews like Southern California Interiors can’t afford to slow down. The crew — who worked on two buildings at The Avalyn, a 480-unit luxury apartment complex within a 210-acre master-planned community called Millenia — was growing frustrated by frequent jobsite damage to many of their finished drywall corners.

As other crews are always moving in and out of a multifamily construction project with heavy equipment, damage to finished drywall corners is a constant concern. Bumps, scrapes and other day-to-day impacts on their metal corner beads would require the drywall finishers at Southern California Interiors to return, rip out the bead and replace it.

With these return trips eating into their profits, the leadership at Southern California Interiors sought out Trim-Tex’s Fast Edge Paper corner bead, which promises to install faster than any other corner bead while using the least amount of mud. While, of course, these labor and material savings were appealing to this fast-moving drywall crew, they were especially interested in the bead’s durability and resiliency.

“Working in common high-traffic areas, you find our stuff gets beat down a lot more,” says Southern California Interiors Estimator/Project Manager Anthony Anderson. “We were looking for something that’s stronger, cleaner for those areas, and that's how we came across the Fast Edge Paper bead, so we started using that. We just used that at a project last year, and we noticed a difference in not having to rework it and just the strength of the corners at high-traffic areas. So we transitioned to using it at Millenia as well and it's been awesome … it's definitely served what it was intended for beautifully.”

The bead consists of laminated paper over a sturdy yet flexible vinyl core. Attached to this vinyl core are Trim-Tex’s patented mud locks, which grip into the joint compound for an unmatched bond to the drywall. The result is a corner that can withstand much more impact, with minimal damage to its sharp nose or its bond to the corner.

Said Southern California Interiors President/CEO Jesse Rodriguez: “On the Fast Edge Paper, once we tried it out on an assisted living project we did in Fallbrook, [my taping superintendent] says, ‘Jesse, this is the way I want to go with it.’ There's always somebody that bumps the corner bead anywhere under four feet, and then we have to go back and try to replace it. It never comes out right because it's an eight-foot or a 10-foot stick — now you're cutting it down to two feet or one foot and it's never going to be straight. He says, ‘Listen, if we go with the Fast Edge Paper, even if they ding it, it's strong enough to where it holds up to multiple beatings.’ I said, ‘Good enough for me!’