Put down the automatic taping tool and pick up a banjo for inside corners

I was on a job in Spokane last spring with a crew that swore by automatic taper tools for everything. One old timer, must have been 65, just shook his head and pulled out a hand banjo. He did all the inside corners on a 2,000 square foot house in about 3 hours with zero mess. Said the automatic tool leaves too much mud in the corner for tight angles. I tried it on the next room and got way fewer knife marks. Has anyone else found hand tools beat the auto stuff for certain spots?

3 comments

3 Comments

dixon.iris11d ago

Buddy of mine tried using an auto taper on a whole job last summer and ended up having to scrape half the corners out because the mud was too thick. He said the hand banjo let him feather those tight angles way cleaner with way less sanding after. Swears he'll never go back to the auto tool for anything inside again.

jamesf4110d ago

My buddy's a foreman over in Tampa and he used to swear by the auto taper no matter what. But last fall he had a whole hallway with those funky 135 degree corners and it gummed up so bad he spent the next day scraping with a 5-in-1. He finally borrowed a hand banjo and said the same thing your buddy did about feathering. That kinda changed my mind too. I still think the auto tool has its place on long straight seams but for anything with a corner, hand tool is just more reliable in my book.

emery_flores10d ago

Hear me out though, is three hours on a 2,000 square footer really that impressive? I've seen guys rip through inside corners with an auto taper just as fast if they keep the mud set right, and @dixon.iris's buddy probably just had his tool set too thick. Seems like a lot of hand-wringing over something a quick scrape and a sanding block can fix.