Who else has seen people try to use a trowel for everything?

Was on a job in Austin last month and saw a guy trying to finish a curb with a pointed trowel. Not a margin trowel, not an edger. A regular little pointing trowel. He was out there for 20 minutes fighting it. I walked over and handed him a 4 inch margin trowel and he looked at me like I handed him a spaceship. How do you get into concrete finishing without knowing the basic tools? Any other totally wrong tool uses you have spotted?

2 comments

2 Comments

troymorgan27d agoMost Upvoted

Wait did you used to be one of those guys that thought a tool is a tool and you can make anything work if you try hard enough? Because I was exactly like that when I started out. I remember showing up to a job with just a worn down margin trowel and a wooden float thinking I could handle anything. Then my foreman watched me spend ten minutes trying to smooth a big slab edge with that little thing and he just shook his head. He pulled a fresh trowel out of his truck and showed me the difference in five seconds flat. That moment changed my whole way of thinking about the right tool for the right job.

mia44227d ago

Marshalltown #4 was the one that did it for me. I had this old warped trowel I'd been using for years, thought it was fine. @troymorgan I know exactly that feeling of watching someone with the right tool just make it look easy. The foreman I had back then caught me using a gauging trowel for a whole floor one time. He didn't say anything, just handed me a proper trowel and stood there. I finished the section in half the time and the finish was way better. Made me realize a dull or warped blade is like trying to cut wood with a rusty saw. You can fight it all day or just get the right thing and be done.