I happen to be a man who loves tools. I’ve got a whole bunch of them and am always on the lookout for more. To be brutally honest, I’ll admit that I sometimes want to get rid of my current tools, just so I can somehow acquire new ones. I get bored easily and love the prospect of shiny new things to look at. Of course, I would never do that. Just so you know.
I am nearing completion of the drywall taping in the log cabin room. As I mentioned in my previous post, that’s sort of an ugly and sloppy step. The next two coats need to be far better looking, which will require finesse on my part. Because of this, and because of the array of odd angles in this room, I decided to pick up the Versa-Trowel Adjustable Corner Drywall Knife. As far as tools go, this one is rather interesting.
While applying joint compound to corners isn’t the most challenging thing on earth, it does present a few areas to be careful of. First, it’s time consuming. If you use a regular putty knife with fiberglass mesh tape, you have to keep the knife parallel with the corner. If you try to apply the mud and then slide the knife down the entire length of the corner, there’s a good chance that you’ll slice right into the center of the tape. Ask me how I know this. I’ll tell you. I did it. This is why folks prefer to use paper tape in the corners. That, and also the fact that when you fold the fiberglass mesh, it’ll crack. Ask me how I know this as well.
Anyway, if you apply the fiberglass tape so it’s gently curved, apply the joint compound and then put the knife into the corner so it’s parallel, you can simply pull the putty away from the corner. This process works well, but again, it’s time consuming.
The second thing you need to be careful of is ridges when you try to work on corners with the above method. As you pull the material away from the wall, it sort of bleeds out the edges of the knife. Because of this, you need to go over and over it, until it’s smooth. I really don’t mind this because I enjoy working extraordinarily slowly. After all, I’ve been working on this one room for almost three years.
There is an upside to using a flat knife in corners though. They’re great for pressing compound into any gaps you may have. And in all actuality, you’ll likely need to use a straight knife for this step regardless if you own a corner one or not.
Corner trowels work great for the finishing coats because the tape is hidden behind a layer of compound. There’s less chance of scoring the tape itself, so you can slide the knife up and down the wall at will. That’s what I plan on doing with the one I recently purchased.
Since I’ve never seen an adjustable version of something like this, I thought I’d grab a few photos of it to pass on to you. If you have any similar projects in the future, you may want to grab one. I paid $23 for it.
Take a look at the following photos. I modeled the trowel on the lid of a nice 5-gallon bucket of joint compound. I also left the ruler in the back for added interest.
As you can see from the photos, this trowel has a hinge at its center. There’s also a wing nut that controls its angle. This is the reason I purchased this version as opposed to the fixed 90 degree one. I have a vaulted ceiling in this room that has three good runs of wider angles. If it was a standard room with regular corners, I would have just stayed with the fixed knife. Those only cost around $12.
Do you want to see what this bad boy looks like up against a corner? Luckily, I took two shots of that as well. I had to balance the trowel in one hand and the camera in the other. The things I do for this blog.
If you have any questions or thoughts about this trowel or this post, please leave them in the comment section below. Thanks for reading!
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