How do you bend a sheet a drywall into a curve?

Question

How do you bend a sheet a drywall into a curve? I tried wetting the back surface with a paint roller, letting it soak for 30 minutes, then scoring the back paper in parallel lines about an inch apart where I wanted the curve. When I screwed it to the studs, though, one of the scores turned into a break and the sheet became angled rather than curved.

In this specific situation the curve was probably about 10 degrees over the span of 6 inches. Is this too tight a bend for standard drywall?

score first, damp second. May take a little practice, but should work fine. — shirlock homes, Jan 30 '11 at 15:41

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 30 '11 at 15:34

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Dampening and scoring the back paper is the right way to prepare drywall for installation around a curve. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation says that the radius of curvature was about 30", which should have been OK (my drywall book says 20" minimum for 1/2" panels). You may simply have been unlucky with it breaking.

There are flexible drywall panels, though I've never seen them in the stores. Failing that, you could also try a double thickness of 1/4" panels, which are widely available.

answered Jan 30 '11 at 15:34

Niall C.

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On one very large job with a 3 story round staircase, my guys actually threw full sheets of rock into the lake out front for a couple of minutes to bend it around the walls!!! Sure looked insane, but worked. – shirlock homes Jan 30 '11 at 20:45
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seems like that would be a good way to make a new house smell old. – Levi Rosol Jan 31 '11 at 15:51
It's all about 1/4" drywall. Bending 1/2" takes too much work. – Mazura Jun 27 '15 at 03:02

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 23 '11 at 13:46

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If it is too tight to bend the drywall, then you could try our company's products:

Fulcrum Composites Website

We are a small company who make custom curved sandwich panels. Their primary application is for decorative architectural features in museums, churches and the like. We were recently asked by a local architect to produce panels that could give him radiused corners in drywall. So we produced panels which gave him a 4" inside radius, 8" outside radius, and a wrap-around curve for the end of a stud wall.

edited Nov 23 '11 at 13:46

Tester101

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answered Feb 03 '11 at 01:28

Fulcrum

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I tried cleaning up your post a little bit and making it clear that you have a direct affiliation with the website you linked to. You may want to include a ballpark cost estimate for a single corner on an 8' wall. This will give anyone looking into a curved drywall corner for their home an idea if your product is worth buying. If it's something like 10x the price of a sheet of drywall, I'm doubting you have much of a target audience here. – Doresoom Feb 03 '11 at 21:46
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Seems like an apt recommendation given the question. – zanlok Feb 04 '11 at 08:00

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 27 '15 at 00:09

Instead of sheetrock, you can use thin sheets of fiberboard. Each bends easily, and you stack them to get the right thickness. Then cover with joint compound to match, if you will be using a spray texture.

You could also do it the old way, with wet plaster.

How do you bend a sheet a drywall into a curve?

3 Answers3