silverstilts

What do you think when you hire someone to finish for you and they only show up with a pan and maybe a 6" knife , or something so basic as a pail for mixing ?

silverstilts

The worst is when they show up with plastic tools that you can buy at wally world , or krap-mart .

Darren@Partners

The same thing as when you hire a hanger with a "year of experience with my uncle" and they show up with no bags or anything resembling drywall tools. Or with bags and a finish hammer, never having seen a drywall hatchet or rasp. or not knowing how to read a tape or that a nine is 108". I'd better stop now.

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Mushin Drywall

I had a guy show up to help me hang a house. He had a old 12 volt makita( with one battery and no charger) a blue cooking apron and a pair of sandals.
A friend of a friend of a .... had called me to see if I had any work for their "Journeyman" uncle. First thing out of his mouth was "I don't hang lids" I can't tell you what came out of my mouth next. He had the nerve to ask me for gas money and I don't know if I was feeling sorry for the guy or what but I gave him ten bucks. He left or so I thought. Five minutes after I paid him he went outside and was trying to sell weed to the Masons working out front.
One of them came inside to tell me and I came unglued. Luckily he was gone when I got outside.

croozer

I too have had my share ..lol..from the violent and dangerous to the absolute moronic druggos, seen them all..Recently , I have noticed a sharp rise in" im a good tradesman, but i have no tools, can you buy me some" and I'"I got no car, can you pick me up?". It seems that this game does indeed attract more than its fair share of "characters" and its a worldwide phenominum...All the best ..

Whitey97

Good, so I'm not the only one that attracks loosers. For a while there, I thought I had the knack for finding the "good help"

Muddauber

I'ts because of all this good American workforce that the mexicans were able to take over our trades.

Whitey97

Mexican's took it over, because the majority of them will work their nuts off for peanuts. Reguardless of the quality

A+ Texture LLC

I tried a new guy a few months ago, that had drywall hanging and finishing experience. I was on my stilts and told him to go grab the other pair from my truck. Here he comes on them with them on the wrong legs, more weebly than a weeble wobble. He says, "man I just bit it pretty hard out there." Well no sh## Mr. experience. I shoulda never took his word for it. Could have cost me dearly. Not only that he had to leave halfway through the day for a welfare appt. then after that he had a dr. appt. for his kid he forgot about. That was his first and last day.

Darren@Partners

Yeh, the one where the guy has to take his kid (&wife) to the doctor.... That gets me so mad I could just explode. I'm not talking about a brain surgery or chemo, just shots or an ear ache or some crap. I don't mean to sound mean, but some of the excuses I've heard are just pathetic. My dad never, ever took off from his job to take me to a doctor appt.

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brdn_drywall

ya that's something that makes me bite my tongue also you do not want to be an insensitive employer but all the medical leaves that aren't necessary get to me also, am i outa line for questioning why a man has to go to every ultrasound appointment his wife has, i have this one guy that holds his wife's hand to every appointment which seems like every two weeks!

Darren@Partners

I, like you, almost buy that one. But to take the wife and kid to a routine office visit.....

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Whitey97

I can't say much about that. I went to a good majority of my son's visits. My wife scheduled them post work hours though.

carpentaper

the only ultrasounds i ever went to were after work. the last one i went to i spent the whole time chasing my one and a half year old daughter around the clinic trying to keep her out of stuff.

Whitey97

Ha, yeah that sounds about right. My boy is 2 now and busted his leg tonight, speaking of hospital visits.

LightRock

Whitey97:ouch! i bet you can feel it too right? sat with my 3 year old through 2 sets of stitches now, but no bones.

As for guys who show up with no tools, 10 years ago I came out to Alberta to do stucco because Ontario's work had dried up. The owner of the stucco outfit rediscovered his love for cocaine that job ended. So I decided to take up taping again. I had to go on site with a pan, a hawk and trowel, and 6" and 5" knives and borrow a drill to mix with. I had only ever worked for someone else and had NO idea what made a good piecework price. They offered me 12c a foot for mechanical rooms... and took materials off. At the end of a (90 hour) 2 week pay period i had earned $465. i was just about sick at the thought of trying to rent a place on that kind of money but since i had a place to stay, i bought tools with it. At the end of 3 months I'd found my way and started getting on by the hour doing touch ups and deficiencies, but damn it was an awful start. my best homemade tool was a set of stilts I'd made from decking brackets and lumber if found in Home Depot. They were awful, and I'd never take anyone seriously wearing anything like them, but they allowed me to double my output at the time. I think 2 different safety officers threw them away at one point or another. Well I have stuck with it, proved myself, and went out on my own after 7 years with that company. There aren't many trades you can pull yourself up with like drywall taping, though boarding takes a few less tools. Taping has treated me alright.

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Taping is an Art ...sometimes an art of lies an illusions

Darren@Partners

I see a lot of guys think hanging is so much cheaper to get into than taping. BS! Tapers can rent tools at Ames. Eight benches, two sets of extension legs, two extension planks, scaffold, screw guns and routers, a dozen(good) cords, a dozen + T-squares..... I had well over 10 grand on my van running a six man crew. My personal (custom) set of nail bags cost well over $150 empty, well over $300 with a proper set of hand tools. Once, I needed a tire repaired on the quick and pulled in a Wal-Mart Auto Center and their lift couldn't raise my van off the floor....

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Muddauber

It's been years sense I've rented tools, but I'm sure a full set of tools would run well over $400.00 per month.

$400.00 x 12 = $4,800.00 per year.

LightRock

Well yes it is possible to spend a lot. but the start up cost to be the employee is, i argue, lower. the cost to get into a basic set of taping tools , just mastic tube not even boxes, is close to 800. We need the benches and extension planks too; wherever you went to hang, we have to go to tape, though I don't need as many since i think our reach is easier. And i grant you, in some jusristictions we can use stilts.
Even granting that it doesn't follow that your 6 man crew worth of equipment is a direct comparison. It's a rare boarder who needs to make two trips out to his truck to move off site. It sounds like your crew didn't have to carry much with all that on your truck.

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Taping is an Art ...sometimes an art of lies an illusions

Darren@Partners

Again, tubes and the like can be rented. So I argue the start up cost for a taper is the cost of a pan and set of knives? For a hanger the bags and hand tools alone far exceed that. Even if you can't use stilts, don't most auto tools have extensions? And a taper can work from much lighter weight trigger benches vs. the heavier Wallboard benches. Not many employee tapers show up with bazookas and boxes, just a pan and some knives. And how about cords-- tapers need what, 2 or 3 maybe. One for a mixer and a couple for lights? Every hanger must have 2 each, plus a 12 ga. 100' to the pole and two 6-ways to plug into. I've yet to see any taping crew use anything over a 3-way.
And for trips to the truck -- two? You're joking right? Each man will make a trip with a tool tub, then a trip with benches, a third (or 4th) with scaffold. After that the T-squares, fasteners, glue, main 100' cord can be divided among the crew. And note the heaviest thing a taper picks all day is a box of mud. A 16' sheet weighs in excess of 100 lb., and I hung those on walls solo.
BTW, I failed to mention the partial set of framing tools good hangers usually carry: Sawzall, skilsaw, at least if not an Impulse gun. I usually just carried a 20 oz Vaughn framer instead. But that's $30 vs $289. So yeh, taping is waaay cheaper to get started in.

PS: It doesn't matter what the crew carried in their vehicles. What matters is what has to show up at the job, regardless of who hauls it there.

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