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How to install final VJ panel on a wall?

Hi everyone!

I have all but one of my panels up. The one that hasn’t been glued and nailed in is marked with a blue arrow. I’m not too sure how to fit this one in because I can’t seem to manoeuvre my fingers to push on the right hand side edge of the panel to fit the groove over the green tongue of the panel that’s already up. The panel that’s up and has the green tongue is marked in green, along the side where the tongue is.

Any ideas how to do this other than to trim the panel a bit more? I’m worried that if I do that, there will be too wide a gap to fill up with “no more gaps”. Even if I trim it though, it still feels like it would be a tight space to work with. All of this is made harder by the fact that I need to prop the board up on spacers to create a 10mm gap with the floor. When I try to connect the panels from an angle and subsequently swing the panel forwards to the wall, it often loses contact with shifting spacers or moves the spacer and that means my panel drops to the wrong level. On one of my dry runs, I managed to get the panels somewhat joined together, but it was not great as I could still catch a glimpse of the green tongue! It’s all just very cumbersome. Any help would be much appreciated!

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EricL

Hello @chris_con

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's sensational to have you join us and thanks for sharing your question about installing your final EasyVJ panel.

I believe you're having control issues due to the limited space available to your fingers. I propose attaching two timber offcuts onto the surface of the panel so that you can lift and push the panel in the direction that you desire. Once the panel is in place and has been secured, you can then unscrew the timber hand holds and repair the holes with filler.

I've drawn up a sample image below to give you an idea of where to install the timber handholds. You can technically add more handles if you wish, just keep in mind that the extra screw holes will need to be filled in as well.

Let me call on our experienced members @Dave-1 and @Nailbag for their recommendations.

If you have any other questions we can help with, please let us know.

Eric

Dave-1

Afternoon @chris_con

Well think @EricL's idea has stollen anything I could come with lol I was going to suggest an angle bracket that you could use to "pull" the sheet into the existing ones but I really like Erics suggestion. Much more controllable for shift the VJ board around.

btw in case you havnt been using spavcers on the bottom and just keeping it off teh floor, I have used spare sections of plaster board for that space level. 10mm works perfectly.

Dave

chris_con

Thank you very much for this great idea!

chris_con

Thank you Dave, I’ll give Eric’s idea a go!

And thanks for the idea on spare off cuts, I wish I had not bought the spacers!

EricL

Hi @chris_con

Please keep us updated with your progress, we look forward to seeing your VJ wall fully installed.

Eric

Nailbag

I hear your pain @chris_con getting that last sheet in can be very challenging. I recently had a project to install it over head as a ceiling for an old Alfresco deck makeover. Trying to position the panels so they line up, slide together the T & G just about ruined me and my helper. Pics below. But I have also done the same project as you for a feature wall. So here are my tips on top of the excellent one @EricL provided with a few visuals attached below.

It's much easier to join the tongue if the previous panel isn’t fixed the last 250-300mm. So, if you can pry, it out about 15mm and run some Vaseline along the green tongue, which will help it slide into place.

Use a right angle pry bar along the right-hand edge starting at say the bottom and work your way up the edge. You can use a thin bit of timber or plastic in-between the pry bar and wall for extra non-damaging leverage.

I hope this helps. Regards, Nailbag

Screenshot 2024-06-12 at 6.20.29 PM.png

chris_con

Awesome, thanks so much! What a great idea, and thank you for great illustrations. I’ve had a look at the installed panel and I’m pretty sure I can carefully pry off the last 300 mm or so. I’ll give this a crack before I attempt to attach the handholds as per Eric’s suggestion!

Nailbag

Excellent. Looking forward to the final photos @chris_con

chris_con

Thanks to everyone for all the suggestions to help me finish off the panelling! I’d do a few things differently in hindsight but I think it turned out well!

MitchellMc

Great result, @chris_con! Feel free to let us know how you got the sheet in position or things you'd do differently as members coming across this discussion in the future with a similar issue will benefit from your tips.

Mitchell

Dave-1

Afternoon @chris_con

The wall looks great! 🙂 But now I am interested in "a few things different" part? I actually find the debrief of things that didnt work even more interesting then what did. It goes into that big box of knowledge for next time.

Dave

chris_con

Thanks @Dave-1 and @MitchellMc

My house was built a long time ago, so things aren’t quite so plumb anymore! I realised later how the floor sags a bit in the middle, and the walls at either end aren’t 100% straight. For the first half of the job, I really struggled with this on my own, trying to get the panel level and butted up against the cornice. Not the biggest issue because I managed to fill in the gap between the panels and cornices with gap filler. I think the second half of the wall looks more professional. I used different sized offcuts of things in order to prop up my panel in increments as needed (hybrid floor board, a couple of tiles of slightly different thickness, and offcuts of the vj panel itself).

In my attempt as an utter novice in all things DIY, I initially thought I would have to get the panels up really quickly after applying the gyprock stud adhesive to the back. And I think that urgency resulted in inferior results compared to when I realised I had enough time to tug, nudge, shift, remove, and repeat the fitting process if necessary.

Also, I fit the first panel to the wall such that subsequent panels had to have their grooved edge slotted back onto the tongue of the panel previously installed! This is so much harder than re-orienting the panel so that you slot the tongue into the grooved edge! I found this out on a second wall where I’ve installed panels.

I had read that the panels needed a 10mm gap between wall and edge of panel to cater for expansion and contraction. Subsequently I came across other people who’ve used 5mm only. I think 10mm is overkill (but I’m also a complete novice!). It left what I thought was a horrible looking gap that cast a shadow. I tried filling it in with gap filler but it was hard to make a long wide groove look nice. I ended up filling in the gaps with dowel rods. I think it looks okay but I’d try to reduce the gap next time and that would lend well to gap filler.

One particular wall bowed out. I struggled to make an allowance with my circular saw! On a second wall, I took my time with a jigsaw and the result was much better!

Initially I put adhesive a bit too close to the edges of the panel. This made things more cumbersome to slot in the subsequent panel as the adhesive had oozed out when I pressed the panel onto the wall. Even though I cleaned the adhesive off, there were remnants just under the edge that made life difficult.

Sometimes it was harder to shift the panel than I thought it would be. Placing an offcut of my laminate flooring on the edge of the panel and hammering the laminate with a mallet helped me to shift the panel without damaging it.

I also found that if I pried the board away from the wall ever so slightly, I could wrap my hands around the panel and tug at that panel to shift it. This really helped when I discovered this “method” later on! As mentioned, I had more time than I thought I had. If I had realised this, I wouldn’t have started nailing the panels in till I realised the panels were slotted in almost fully and the green tongue was basically undetectable. I think it makes for a better result that way.

Get a nail gun! However if you do have to use a hammer, make sure your hammer the bullet nails so that they are recessed or at the very least, level with the panel surface. It makes for a much cleaner look when you fill in the holes with wood filler. Initially I was unnecessarily worried I would damage the primed board if I hammered harder. Even if you chip off some of the primed layer, you can re-coat with primer.

This is what I can think of other than the tips I gleaned off the replies! If I think of more I’ll add to this!

EricL

Hello @chris_con

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with the installation of the VJ panels. I'm sure that this information will come in handy to those members who are just starting to install their VJ panels.

Eric

Dave-1

Morning @chris_con

🙂 Thank you for listing your experiences, I am sure that someone along the way will go "gold!" as you describe something they run into.

Dave

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