Talk:Spackling paste

Untitled

Two things:

1. Someone put a redirect on this page to putty which was reverted without comment twice. Given the stubbiness of this article and the fact it can't be much more than just a definition, I think that redirect makes sense.
2. In the meantime, I'm moving the article to Spackling paste as the proper location.

--mtz206 20:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Two people added the redir, which was indeed reverted without comment. I added the stub and unsourced. I have no idea if this can get beyond dicdef; if not, I suggest a merge, as (from my understanding) spackling paste is a type of putty or materiel which is not currently covered in the putty article. It may not, technically, be a putty at all. KillerChihuahua^?!? 20:42, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I recommend removing the redirect to here taht's currently at Polyfilla and replacing it with an article on the brand, which is extensive, and as much a household name as Sellotape (well, in the UK). That is, unless someone's got the ingredients of "spackling paste" and wants to post them for comparative purposes. Yes they do fulfill mostly the same purpose, but so do poo and pee. Granted you shouldn't really be filling holes in your walls with them. 172.143.116.104 16:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not Spackle?

Is there a good reason this article isn't called just Spackle? Spackle seems to be much more common than spackling paste, 250,000 to 13,200.[1] And if the issue is that the former is a trademark, it doesn't seem like spackling paste is much more generic, since it's directly derived from Spackle. I say move this to Spackle, and maybe include a note on the etymology & trademark. This is how I'd rewrite the article if moved:

Spackle (also known as spackling paste) is a genericized trademark used in North America for a variety of pastes used to fill holes, small cracks and other minor surface defacements in wood, drywall and plaster. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name is likely related to the dialectic verb sparkle, meaning "to overlay or daub with cement", and the German noun spachtel, meaning "putty knife, mastic, filler". In Britain, Canada and Australia a similar product is sold under the brand name Polyfilla, a term that in those regions has also become a genericized trademark.

Premixed, spackle is commonly available in several different weights: regular or heavy; lightweight; and lightbodied (a combination of heavy and light). It can also be bought as a powder, which the user mixes with water to a desired consistency. A similar substance is joint compound, used for sealing the joints between newly installed sheets of drywall.

I would go ahead and move/rewrite it myself, except that the only talk here is about people doing/undoing reverts without comment, and I don't want to simply start another round of that.--Severinus 21:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The page should be simply "spackle." To avoid redir, the addition of spackle material and history/origin would make this less dicdef. Nboffa (talk) 21:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Polyfilla

Think there should be some mention of the British brand here - at the moment the article is solely about an American product, even though Polyfilla redirects here. If you said "spackle" or "spackling paste" in the UK, no-one would have the faintest idea what you meant. Not sure what the common term is in other English-speaking countries, Australia, Canada, South African and so on. 94.11.68.60 (talk) 01:46, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

rename article

I believe this article should be renamed to something generic. The term "Spackle" etc, is clearly a regional term used in USA but as far as I can tell is unheard of outside that country. Propose to rename to "Wall filler".Alistair1978 (talk) 13:16, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

If I were looking at an article named Wall filler I would expect it to be about shelf units. That is the most common return from a Google search. Binksternet (talk) 13:28, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Putty

This product bears no resemblance to 'putty' in a European sense. Putty is generally clay based and never truly sets hard although linseed based putties do polymerise to become fairly rigid. Stub Mandrel (talk) 14:30, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Err…many varieties of joint compound contain clay, and I think Spackle contains vinyl, which makes it even less likely to set than clay-based putties. In what way does it not resemble a 'putty'? In any case, WP:Be Bold! Make the change you think is better, or propose alternatives here. jhawkinson (talk) 14:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Problems with images…they're generally not spackle

@ManOfTheArk I appreciate your efforts to find an image to go with this article. But…I don't think they are working. It seems to me that when you search for images of spackle, they usually are not actually images of spackle — they tend to be images of other products and people are using "spackle" imprecisely and not distinguishing it from other products. You recently added a cropped image, but going to the uncropped version of that image, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:School_renovations_continue_during_Pacific_Angel_22-4_(Image_8_of_8).webp, it sure appears that the product being applied was mixed up in a blue bucket being held in the the hand of the "U.S. military civil engineer." That makes it exceedingly unlikely that it is a spackling product, because spackle is not mixed on-site from powder, I claim. It's a premixed product purchased ready-to-use for homeowner convenience. (I realize that this article notes, under the trademark section, that the 1927 Muralo Company product was a dry powder. But that's not the case in the modern world, where spackle products basically come exclusively ready-mixed. Of course, the article doesn't say or explain that, and it's terribly hard to find good sourcing on this sort of thing, with the result that it's all very misleading and hard to fix.)

I don't know what kind of construction methods are used in East Timor schools, and whether the US Military on site in Southeast Asia tends to use typical US construction methods or traditional local construction methods. Regardless, it seems terribly unlikely they would use spackle at all, because that's designed for small DIY repair jobs, not large projects where you have the the resources to mix up a product in batches. I also can't tell what's actually being done in the photo — the product is being applied to a column / support pillar that appears to be made of concrete, and that's not something that you would do with either spackle or joint compound. Image 1 of 8 from the DoD PR site gives a better sense of these columns and their position within the school. I would guess it is a concrete patch material of some sort? Perhaps they are using a gypsum plaster (joint compound?) or lime plaster in that application, but it seems uncertain and not the most likely thing to me?

As a minor point, also, you have marked this as "Image 8 of 8" but that's not right — Image 8 is a headshot of a guy wearing sunglasses, and your image is actually Image 2. I haven't removed the image, but it probably needs to go. Sorry. jhawkinson (talk) 11:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback! I agree it's difficult to find an image that is certainly premixed spackling paste, as opposed to joint compound. For this image, I went by the original description of the photo, which describes the contents as "A U.S. military civil engineer applies spackle to a pillar...." It's possible that this might be an instance of the term "spackle" being used loosely, of course.

Do you think this is more unambiguously spackling paste? These factors seem convincing to me:

• The subject seems to be holding what appears to be a premixed bucket, though no label is visible. A cursory search didn't find any brands of pink spackle in a container that matches the photo, but I'm neither in Hawaii nor a purchaser for the U.S. military so their options may be different.
• The pinkish substance is being applied to wood.
• The pinkish substance specifically covers the screw holes in the wood, rather than the adjacent seam as joint compound would be.

Re: the filename, I took the name of the file from the copyright notice on this page. Not sure why it doesn't match the page title or other places the image appears. ManOfTheArk (talk) 00:20, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Because spackle is a consumer-oriented product that is generally only used in small batches, I do not think it's likely that you are going to find any DoD PR photography that uses the term correctly. Although I won't say that the DoD never uses spackle (but that might be true), it's likely never used on a major construction project that is a big enough deal to get a photographer. At least, not on plaster/gypsum/drywall. Maybe, as in this picture, on wood? Typically, it's used when somebody wants to fill one hole or a small number of holes.

I don't think the bucket tells you much…everyone reuses buckets when they are done with the original product. I tend to think of pink being a color for firestop/fireblock products, but it is also something you see in products like DAP Drydex, which goes on pink and dries white, but this looks a little too red for that (on the other hand, it looks like the holes to the worker's left are white, so perhaps they went on pink and dried white). In your favor, the logo centered around (476,1210) looks like it could the DAP "putty knife" logo backwards; contra, the packaging colors don't seem right for Drydex: it seems like a blue and brown that is more consistent with DAP Fast Dry which is also a spackle, but is not pink. I'm also not sure the seam isn't being covered, it looks like that's being done, but not consistently.

It looks like all the photos in a set tend to use the same copyright text and it's easy to imagine how someone might copy it without noticing it contained numbering that should change; that seems to be true of this Pu’uhonua image.

If the standard is "more unambiguously," then sure. I can't look at this image and say, "I'm pretty sure it's not spackle," and I could say that for the East Timor one. Without more information, I probably wouldn't remove this image if it were in the article, but I also wouldn't feel confident adding it. jhawkinson (talk) 01:25, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking it was Drydex, going on pink and drying white, but of course there's no way to prove that. I hear you about it being a consumer product, which is unlikely but not unheard of for the DoD.

Another option is this set of images from Flickr from the same album: [2] [3]. The first shows a set of equipment, including what appears to be a container of Drydex spackling and its red lid. (Lids are now typically pink, but some retailers still show red: [4] [5] [6]) The second shows it after being applied over the patch from the first image. Another image from the album shows the hole/area it was used on.

It's not the typical application to cover a small hole, and they're not very high quality pictures, but I'm pretty confident that it's spackle. I would probably use a cropped version of the first image showing the container and putty knife.

As a sidenote, in searching for images, it's clear that amateurs use it for more applications than just covering small holes. Nothing worth adding to the article per WP:OR, but just to note that there's some ambiguity around the product as is reflected here on the talk page.

Appreciate your collaboration on this! ManOfTheArk (talk) 02:16, 31 August 2024 (UTC)