Types of drywall cutters and manufacturers overview

The most popular material for decorating is drywall. It is used for the installation of curvilinear structures, the arrangement of GKL ceilings, the alignment of walls and the construction of partitions. This material is so versatile that any structure can be built from it. The only inconvenience is fitting joints, which takes a very long time.
This is how V-shaped cutters for drywall of various sizes look. But there is a tool that minimizes labor costs for sheet fitting - a cutter for drywall. Thanks to this device, you can make even holes in the slab, or cut complex configurations with cuts.

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Material Features

Drywall is a rectangular sheet of small thickness. It consists of a gypsum layer, which is coated on both sides with construction paper - cardboard. Due to the fact that the material is simple and convenient to use, it is quite possible to do its installation yourself - you only need to stock up on the necessary tools in advance.

Drywall in its composition does not contain harmful substances and chemicals, so it is absolutely safe for health. The product can serve for a long time, but only in those rooms where humidity is not increased, otherwise it will simply deteriorate.

Drywall sheets vary in color and size. Its thickness can be different: 8, 12.5, 16.5, etc.and the color is gray or blue. But there are such types as GKLV (moisture-resistant drywall sheet), GKLO (material with increased fire resistance), GKLOV (fire-resistant gypsum cardboard).

Advantages and disadvantages

Drywall milling, like any other construction process, has its advantages:

Time saving. The use of the process in question reduces the time spent on the construction of boxes and corners. Without exception, everything is done significantly quickly. In addition, there is no way to ruin the material if you follow all the tips.
Reducing the number of open ends. This makes the structure tidier and also greatly simplifies the work: there is no need for putty and grinding. In addition, you do not need to fix everything except folds - this significantly reduces costs and makes it possible to save time.
The ability to form systems without the construction of a frame. If the box or the carbon ledge will not be a load, then you can not increase the profile of similar components. They themselves have good hardness and will stand for many years without deformation.

The disadvantage of this method, perhaps, is only that you will have to buy a milling machine to work. However, if you do repair work in your own housing infrequently, it is easier to use a tool rented from a store or from friends.

The cost of maintenance is low, so you will save substantial funds.

Requirements

To form a groove, you will need a special device - an electro milling cutter. It is not recommended to buy expensive professional equipment in case the specialist does not get involved in the processing of drywall regularly and he needs it for individual needs. In this case, you can limit yourself to an economical look - the conditions for the router are not so demanding.

Milling should only be done in a smooth and hard plane., excluding a slight slack leaf. Specialists advise using workbenches (often intentionally, without the help of other workpieces for these purposes).

However, you can do without them, carrying out the procedure in a smooth floor plane or on a stack of sheets.

V-shaped cutter used to select the desired groove, is considered a curved device. For this reason, to get straight bending directions there is no way to limit yourself without using specialized rushing tires or different patterns.

They are produced, as a rule, from improvised materials, the most common of which is plywood. In order to perform a direct cut, the template is fixed on drywall, after which the electrofrezer is sent along its border.

Manufacturers

Among the popular manufacturers of electrical appliances for the processing of drywall, mills of the following brands are used:

Bosch - this type of product is in great demand, as it has great technical capabilities,
Encore - equipment of this brand is made of strong high-quality material, contains hard alloy solders, is durable and has a long working life,

"Globe" - The brand is known for the release of a durable device designed to handle hard or soft wood.
Sekira - hard alloys, high-speed steel are used for the production of devices of this brand - this makes it strong, comfortable in operation.

The choice of brand depends on the surface of the drywall, the size of the machine or the cost. In addition, it must be suitable for the technical process.

Main types

The disk milling cutter with the Strong milling cutter is needed for forming straight grooves and sawing drywall itself. Its advantages are speed and cleanliness. But to create grooves of a more complex shape, this tool will not work.

Shaped router performs milling GKL. Often it is used to cut more complex grooves and create a different shape of holes: round, oval and others. This tool uses the Festool cutter.

Milling drywall sheets makes it possible to realize the most unusual design ideas that could not have been realized with a knife. Only milling makes it possible to obtain a flawlessly smooth border, which is especially important in cases where several elements are joined in one plane.

For any occasion, specialized milling cutters are used. The following varieties are often used:

straight - makes grooves and holes at an angle of 90 degrees,
edge nozzle - it is used only if it is required to remove a facet,

T-shaped - allows you to create extremely large holes,
U-shaped - forms the grooves of a semicircular figure,
V-shaped - It is used for cutting triangular grooves.

As a rule, such a set of cutters should be at any highly professional specialist who often needs to use such nozzles for processing drywall sheets. The home master for the processing of GCR will have a V-shaped cutter as the main one.

Using the Festool V-shaped cutter, you can make various drywall products, while the sides will dock at right angles.

This feature allows you to create straight angular surfaces with a minimum number of joints. When choosing, you should pay attention to size: it should fit the router. Often this is a diameter of 32 mm. But in order to mill GKL, you need to be able to use it, as well as buy a good milling cutter.

In order to use the V-shaped mill, you need to purchase a milling machine. Such equipment is quite expensive, so not everyone can afford it. To independently drywall, no expensive fixtures are needed, you can do the work with a manual device. Prices for hand tools are low, the device performs any drywall cutting, and most importantly, quickly.

Using a hand tool, you can easily change the angle of the cutter.

Before starting work, you need to adjust the cutter so that the nozzle itself does not damage the bottom layer. After that, you can start working directly with the tool. If you do not indicate the exact cut point, then make a mistake. In this case, you will have to take another sheet of drywall and start this process again. In order to start work, you should make a measure for the cut and spend the milling cutter along the marked lines.

If you want a perfect cut, milling is possible on the back of the sheet if possible. To do this, gently turn the sheet over and pass the tool along the marked lines.

Milling technology allows you to make any form of construction, but you must follow the above rules - only then you will get the desired result.

Recommendations

If you mill without connecting a vacuum cleaner, this will lead to contamination of the room.

It is better not to perform wood milling, since the tree is denser than drywall, so the edge will turn out to be rough and ugly.

For good work, you need to use only high-quality cutters - take care of this in advance!

If finances allow, it is better to purchase a complete set of milling cutters for work. The set allows you to make the desired incision and cut a certain part of a different shape. The presence of a large number of nozzles will also allow you to process the material at any degree of inclination.

But novice craftsmen are advised to buy cheaper cutters, since you need to learn how to work with the milling cutter. Later, you can buy new, more expensive kits.

Mills should be bought in special construction stores. There you can find their different types and different price categories. All that remains is to do everything with your own hands.

You can learn about how drywall milling occurs by watching the video a little lower.

How to bend drywall at right angles?

To carry out this operation, for example, in the manufacture of a box for placing the backlight, a V-shaped groove is made in the gypsum plaster. In this case, the cardboard layer on the back side remains intact. Therefore, for example, with sheets 12 mm thick, the maximum groove depth (where the top of the right angle passes) is 10 mm.

After such a treatment, GCR is easily bent at an angle of 90 ° and glued with foam. Get an even and reliable connection.

Milling reduces the consumption of drywall and improves the quality of the outer or inner ribs. To process such an element will require significantly less effort than with the overlap.

Disc mill

The disk mill is used to create straight grooves or for sawing drywall sheet. Advantages of a disk milling cutter - in speed of work and cleanliness of a saw. Plaster is cut very smoothly and without chipping. However, a disk mill is not suitable for creating grooves of complex shape.

Shaped router

The main GKL milling is performed by a shaped milling cutter. It is used for cutting grooves of complex geometry, as well as round or oval holes. In principle, when using a shaped milling cutter, the shape of the hole can be any. Also, with a shaped milling cutter on plasterboard sheets, you can make chamfers.

Milling cutters for working with drywall come in different shapes and sizes, depending on what needs to be done:

Straight grooving cutter. It is used for drilling grooves and holes located at right angles to the plane of the sheet. It can be used to create both point holes and drill holes with complex shapes.
T-slot grooving cutter. It is used for drilling grooves and holes located at right angles to the plane of the sheet. It can be used to create both point holes of large diameter, and for drilling holes of complex shapes.
Edge milling cutter. Allows chamfering at the edge of a drywall sheet. May have a different profile.
U-shaped fillet grooving cutter. It is used for drilling grooves with a rounded bottom profile, as well as for drilling straight point holes and holes of complex geometry.
Groove cutter V-shaped fillet. It is used for drilling triangular grooves with an angle between sections of 90 °. This type of cutter is the main one in the manufacture of drywall constructions.

Possibilities of using a V-shaped milling cutter

The creation of partitions or boxes from drywall according to the classical methodology suggests that the internal and external corners will be composed of two sheets. Accordingly, if, for example, you need to make a U-shaped box, then at least three separate pieces of gypsum plasterboard will be used, which will be attached to the metal profile at right angles to each other.

In the manufacture of the same U-shaped box using a V-shaped cutter, only one piece of GCR is required. Having made only two, I drank it with a milling cutter, bending the sheet and gluing the slices, we get the same box, but without external joints.

The advantages of this method are obvious:

Time costs. Drywall milling speeds up the cutting and assembly of structures at times.
The number of open sections, attachment points and the number of required parts are reduced. This speeds up putty and primer work. Reinforcement at external corners made in this way is generally not required.
Bearing insignificant loads of the box and structure can be installed without a metal frame. After the adhesive layer is dried, the corners formed by milling themselves become quite strong.
Using a V-shaped milling cutter, it is possible to produce structures of different profiles. To do this, you just need to correctly assess the number of angles, evaluate on which side each of the slices is located, make markup and cut the sheet. With large-scale work, you can pre-prepare the required number of corner blanks.

Work with a V-shaped mill

The best milling quality can be achieved on a specialized milling machine. But this solution is quite expensive and appropriate only for the industrial scale of work.

For the milling of drywall and the creation of profile parts from it on the scale of the repair team or yourself, you will need:

Drywall (better if it is waterproof).
Cutting table.
Milling cutter.
Milling cutters.
Industrial vacuum cleaner with a cyclone filter.
The rule.
Clamps.
Protective equipment (gloves, respirator).
Masking tape.
Primer and brush for her.
Adhesive: polyurethane foam, PVA, Uniflot, hot-melt adhesive, etc.

Work on milling and forming parts can be divided into preparatory and basic.

Preparatory work

For convenience of further marking, cut a measure from plywood with a width equal to the distance from the center of the cutter to the stop edge of the cutter.
Using a clamp, attach a rule or level to the assembly table for use as a stop during milling.
Adjust the milling machine so that the milling cutter cuts the entire thickness of the drywall sheet, but does not touch the bottom layer of the cardboard. A residual layer of gypsum is allowed with a thickness of not more than a quarter of a millimeter.
If you need to perform a large number of similar parts, it also makes sense to cut out plywood measurements for each of the joints.

Main works

Calculate the required number of seams, the distance between them and their location on the sheet.
Saw off a piece of the right size from the GCR.
Using the edge milling cutter, chamfer the edges at the edges of the plane joints in advance.
Mark the milling lines.
Mark the stop lines of the edge of the milling cutter.
Press the drywall sheet into the rule.
Attach the cutoff rule to the rule.
Press the edge of the router to the measurement with the left side.

Note! In conditions of free movement, the milling cutter moves to the left, so the emphasis should be located on this side.

Make the first cut over the entire height.
Make a second cut in the same groove in the opposite direction - this is done for a clean cut.
Cut through all the grooves on the side to be cut.
If the geometry of the manufactured part requires milling drywall on both sides, then carefully turn the sheet over and repeat the work.
Dust off with a primer using a semi-dry brush.
Apply adhesive to joints of one side.
Position the part so that the joints are vertical.
Apply adhesive to the joints of the second side.
Give the details the desired shape, check the geometry of the corners.
Fix the structure in this position with masking tape until it dries completely.

GKL milling is a very convenient and profitable solution when creating drywall constructions. This technology, although it requires more expensive equipment, but allows you to perform work more accurately and faster than the usual ways of working with GCR.

Features

The advantages of GKL milling include a number of features:

Time saving. The construction of boxes and other figures using milling several times reduces the time spent in comparison with the wireframe method.
Simplicity. This method is notable for the ease of manufacturing figures, and strict adherence to the rules leads to an almost complete absence of marriage.
Flexibility. Among other positive qualities, this method allows you to give drywall almost any form, thereby expanding the range of design solutions. Accuracy and accuracy are the only requirements when creating complex shapes.

Material saving. Corner joints, which supposedly will not be subjected to serious pressure, can not be reinforced with metal corners. The default design has a sufficient margin of safety to last a long time without losing shape.
Decrease in the volume of work. Since when milling the room angle remains covered with a gypsum plaster sheet, it can not be trimmed with a putty corner in order to cover the open end. In this way, a significant amount of building materials is saved.

Types of Milling Machines

There are two main types of milling machines used for milling GKL - disk and shaped.

Disk is used for cutting drywall sheets, mainly - long sizes.

This method is different:

high processing speed
neat cut line without chips and chipping,
limited work in straight lines.

Shaped milling machine is used for the bulk of the work, the distinctive features of its use include:

the ability to cut complex intricate shapes,
the ability to drill holes of various depths and shapes, for example, oval or round,
the convenience of applying a relief pattern to the surface,
relatively low linear cutting speed, the chance of damage to the sheet is also higher.

Preparation of the tool and workplace

Before you start cutting sheets, you should prepare everything you need:

For cutting drywall, any milling machine with a capacity of 1 kW to 1.5 kW is suitable. It will be difficult to work with a more powerful machine, and the chance to spoil the material will increase.
If the milling machine does not have a device for collecting dust, you need to attach it yourself, and connect a vacuum cleaner to it. Otherwise, when cutting, a cloud of dust will rise, which will spoil the visibility and complicate the cutting, as well as complicate breathing.
For convenient and high-quality work, protective equipment is needed. These are at least safety glasses, but it is also advisable to wear a simple petal respirator

The workplace should be organized as follows:

you need a smooth, flat surface, such as a table,
emphasis is placed on one of the edges of the table, which can be done from several boards - fixing the material will ensure dimensional accuracy,
a suitable cutter is selected - the most common type is V-shaped, which allows you to get a smooth edge of the correct shape.

Drywall cutting step by step

To get a quality result, you should adhere to a certain procedure. After all the preparatory work, you can proceed to direct cutting.

There are various methods of cutting drywall sheets, which, in essence, are as follows:

Marking material. First you need to draw on the blank the outlines of all the details that will be cut. For these purposes, a pencil and a ruler will come in handy. Sometimes at the first markup it seems that there is not enough material, in this case it is worthwhile to figure out the option of cutting again - it may turn out to reduce costs and put everything on the existing sheet. However, it is not necessary to place the parts too close to each other when marking, since the drywall is easily crumbling, and a random chip can spoil the plan.
Preliminary processing of blanks. Before cutting to exact dimensions and embossing, whole sheets can be divided into preliminary blanks with draft dimensions. You can cut the sheets with a knife or other tool.
Preparing for cutting. The workpiece is located in the clamps or rests on the manufactured clamp. Protective equipment worn. The equipment is connected to the network.

Start of processing. With the engine turned off, the machine is applied to the drywall sheet so that the rounded part touches the locking stop. When the cutter is turned on, the machine begins to move uniformly from itself to the edge opposite from the clamp. So the resulting seam will be even and forms the desired angle when bent.
Bilateral processing. In cases where it is assumed that the sheet is processed on both sides, and furrows have already been applied on one of them, it is necessary to turn the GCR very carefully, since its strength at the processing sites is significantly reduced and breaking off is possible.
After all the manipulations with the machine, the cut workpiece is folded at the seams. Various substances can be used for fixing, for example, polyurethane foam, some of which is blown onto the treated furrow. In the tightly folded position, the part must be fixed for several minutes before the foam hardens, after which its excess is removed.

Observing the technical rules of the process, in just a couple of tens of minutes using a milling machine, you can give the necessary form of gypsum plaster without building a frame. This approach primarily saves time and money, in addition, the angles and transitions of such an object are of high quality and reliability.

Create a right angle

Rectangular boxes, for example, for lighting equipment - one of the most common objects made of drywall.

The most convenient way to create them is to use a V-shaped cutter.

For such works, 2 features are important:

when cutting drywall, the lower side should remain untouched - an angle will be kept on it,
the mill used to cut the sheet should go deep into the gypsum plaster to a depth equal to the thickness of the sheet minus 2 millimeters - this will ensure the safety of the back side.

The wood milling cutter practically does not differ from the GKL milling cutter. If we mill on our own at home, then any nozzle will do.

You can see the drywall milling workshop in the next video.

Festool V-shaped cutter applications

When a person creates a box or partition from GKL sheets, the corners will be constructed of several elements, two or three. Drywall is mounted on a metal profile, resulting in a right angle.

If you use the V-shaped festool cutter during the construction of the box, then it is not necessary to cut the sheet of drywall, it is enough to cut and glue its edges together while bending the sheet.

Get a design without joints. This method has several advantages that are obvious:
This is how festool drywall V-cutter looks like

Quick installation - assembly is much faster, the material does not need to be pre-cut, and then docked.
The number of joints becomes much less, thereby finishing the process becomes much easier and faster. As for the corners, in this case there is no need to make reinforcement and spend money on a perforated corner.
If the design of the gypsum board box is not bearing, then you can install it without a frame of profiles. It is worth noting that as soon as the adhesive at the joints dries, the corners will become very strong.

Thanks to this device, structures of various shapes can be made. To do this, you need to correctly mark the drywall sheet and make slices with the festool cutter. If the work is supposed to be with a large volume, then you can immediately prepare all the corner structures, and after that they are easy to mount.

In custody

If you have to make more than one repair using plasterboard structures, then it is better to buy a manual machine for milling this material in the store, since the speed at which even curved structures will be mounted on the ceiling will more than pay for the cost of the tool. This device is easy to use, even for non-professionals, it is enough to adhere to the instructions described above.

Additional devices

Drywall milling is carried out only on a flat and hard surface, eliminating the slightest deflection of the sheet. Professionals prefer to use workbenches, often specially made independently for these purposes. But you can do without them, performing the operation on a flat surface of the floor or a stack of sheets of drywall.

The V-shaped milling cutter used to select the groove we need is a curved tool. Therefore, to obtain smooth bend lines you can not do without the use of special guide rails or various patterns. They are made from improvised materials: it can be plywood or a metal profile. To get a smooth cut, the milling cutter abuts against a template that can be fixed on drywall using self-tapping screws.

Another option: the template has an emphasis on a special side of the workbench. But if you need to create several rectangular corners on a drywall sheet, which is not uncommon, then each bend line will need its own template.

GKL milling and fixing a right angle

The operation of forming a groove to obtain an angle of 90 degrees is quite simple:

A sheet of drywall is placed on the work surface.
The template is fixed. Its value is selected so that the cutter is at the required distance from the edge of the sheet after the tool rests against the template.

Beginners usually use the smooth edge of the milling cutter to slide along the template. Professionals prefer to use a semicircular. This is explained simply: in this position, the tool, even if it rotates a little along the axis, will still go in a straight line. If you rest the flat edge of the device in the template, any deviation will cause a curvature of the cut.

Milling is in progress. The tool is guided and driven smoothly, without jerking.
Plaster dust must be carefully removed from the resulting furrow.
Foam is applied to the V-groove with a gun. It’s not scary if a certain amount of it will appear: the excess is easily cut off.
A right angle is formed. Before the foam hardens, it is recommended to fix it with masking tape, and put the entire structure of drywall on the end.

Thus, using a V-shaped cutter, it is possible to form a right angle from drywall without much effort.