Fixing skirting boards

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Mark18PLL

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I am fitting some 18mm mdf skirting board, would you use 38mm or 50mm brads (both i have to hand)? I think the plaster board is 9mm.

I am also using pinkgrip adhesive with it to make sure its secure.

Cheers
 
63mm, lol!

The 50mm should be okay, it's only really to hold it till the glue sets.
 
The board is probably 12mm, but by the bye. I would find where it needs pulling into the wall - there'll be hollows somewhere - and screw it to the nearest studs. I would use a thinner adhesive than Pinkgrip, it can be difficult to pull the skirtings tight to the wall with something so dense. No More Nails or similar squeezes out better.
 
Never used Pinkgrip so I don't know how thick it is but yes thinner stuff is better. I use Fix All for everything, not cheap but good stuff.

I don't pull it too tightly back to the wall if the wall isn't straight, I prefer to see a straighter skirting rather than it following a wobbly wall but that is just personal preference.
 
Will it need to come off ever? I dislike 'beading' to cover gaps in laminate floors so prefer to take the skirting boards off, do the floor with the usual expansion gap along the wall and then re-fit the skirting boards. The first one I did, well over 10 years ago, needed the floor re-doing recently (walls last longer than floors) so I was pleased I had just blobbed the skirtings back on with a minimum amount of the screwfix equivalent of no more nails. Thin scraper behind, popped off in seconds.

Glue + long brads great - until it needs to come off again. Different if its a customer of course, I'm diy.

(I admit I am slightly obsessive about future maintenence, if you pull the bookshelf on the landing out you will find a panel hidden behind it, open that and you find H&C stopcocks for the en suite. A simlar panel hides stopcocks for the utility room. One architrave in the living room is lightly 'wedged' in place so I can access an ethernet juction, one skirting board in dining room is loose fitted with hi-fi wiring behind. Why make the future more difficult than it needs to be. If I had my way, there would be cable trays just below the ceiling in most rooms and water pipes on the outside of things not behind....)
 
Was going to say the same as Richard, just use no more nails. If you have any areas where it needs pushing into the wall then just fix a 2x2 to the floor a short distance away, and use suitable lengths of scrap to wedge it in place while it sets. If you ever need to take it off in the future then a scraper behind it and it will come off quite easily, usually leaving the adhesive on the back of the board rather than the wall, and without causing any significant damage to either.
 
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