Pan and Knife or Halk and Trowel?

Capt-sheetrock

Maybe cause this is a professional drywallers forum????? Just saying ya know

silverstilts

I may not agree either , however buy looking at his picture on his profile page his work looks good. hard to tell from a small pic. It's not the norm and could be a little slow going but to each his own.

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Arey85

Someone is full of jokes i see But what can i expect by arguing with old schoolers

silverstilts

Hey don't knock us old schoolers we could teach you a thing or two, actually after all these years we can all learn from each other young or old don't matter, there is always someone out there with better methods (at least for them)

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JoeMudder

Even though I think working out of a bucket is really goofy, if someone wants to work out of one it doesn't effect my paycheck.

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silverstilts

PS I always make the most out of my strokes that is with the knife.... I worked with guys that move a hundred miles an hour constantly slapping their knives on their pans or constantly wiping their trowels on the hawk , guess what at the end of the day guess who usually does the most production? It is the experience and also when it comes time to sand well lets just say they would rather sand behind yours truly instead of themselves some just don't learn i guess.

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kgphoto

That was a very nice series of posts Silverstilts.

Arey85

Believe me, I'm not knocking old schoolers I learned half of what i know from a guy in his late 50's. From him i learned cleanliness and quality, and my partner now, in his early 30's ive learned speed, which is something I've gotten to be very proud of..... Flipping a glob of mud right off the trowel and into the bucket from across the room without looking really drops jaws.

Arey85

You never read this......but.....I agree

johnnydrywall

I used to use a pan and knife but was told by the finishing carpenters that the beads were hollow, so I found out by one of the best taper I've ever seen that the knives bend too easy and take out too much mud. I tried a halk and trowel, it took me awhile and spilled a lot of mud on the ground but once I got used to it i never use the big knives again, except for certain textures and the odd tight spot.

silverstilts

A lot of not leaving enough mud is in the technique with a knife, and of course depending on the quality of the knife itself and how thick you run your mud. I prefer to use slightly thinner mud with a knife and not work it so hard but gentle. Most of the newer knives out there are cheaply made with really no spring in the backbone (rib holding the blade) of the knife so they tend to bend and stay concave leaving the bead hollow. It really boils down to experience and the feel for the tool in your hand. I started out with a hawk & trowel 14" at that, then went to a 12' then switched to knives about 28-30 years ago. I only use one knife as far as finish I wont even go into that width because most would not even begin to understand why but very efficient with it.

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JoeMudder

I fill all of mine with a knife and pan, you just have to know what kind of pressure to apply. I had to coat behind a finisher once who fell off a scaffold and broke some bones and couldn't complete the job. He had put too much pressure on the first coat on his seams and after the job was done you could see the shoulders of the board on some of the ceilings. There are guys who just press too hard when they're coating. You also have to use a low shrinkage compound when filling bead. I've seen guys who actually put general purpose compound on them and the stuff shrinks so much that it cracks also. If you are mixing durabond make sure you don't mix it too thin, I usually mix mine thicker for coating bead the first time than what I mix for flat seams.

If your mud is mixed right and you apply the correct pressure when putting it on the board a knife and pan will do a great job and do it faster than other tools can.

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Capt-sheetrock

guess it all comes down to knowing what your doing,, regardless of what type of knife or trowel you use

Axecutioner-B

I thought this was a good read, didn't know H&T was so popular. Interesting to see so many different opinions. I work with a guy who loves an 18" pan, that's all he will use & he can almost hold half a box in it. I don't want to touch that thing, too heavy for me. I'm not Friggin popeye lol !!
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Chantal live

mudslingerdrywall

I learned with hawk & Trowel. The guy I learned from told me on day 1 - "this is a hawk...you're going to want to hold it pretty well level...you WILL drop mud...you get better at not doing that." By the end of the job a couple weeks later, I didn't drop mud, and after 6 years with the hawk, I can't even imagine using a pan.

DSJOHN

I hate pans, jmo. Dsjohn

jmr

taping i've always used pan and 6" knife.. then coat with hawk and trowel. switched to coating with pan and knife and i'll explain why..

first though, troweling bead is BY FAR faster. it uses natural hand and arm motions and is a stiffer tool so mud can float much farther.. plus you can focus the mud on your hawk much more efficiently because its a flat surface....

i switched to 14" pan and 10'' knife for coating 2nd and 3rd for a couple reasons..

1. its cheaper.. pan cost $10 and a good ames knife cost under $10

2. more convenient. you can set a pan full of mud anywhere vs a hawk which spaces to set are very limited.. plus the pan can carry more mud meaning less trips back and forth to mud bucket while on stilts..

3. its alot easier to break in a knife vs trowel.. it took me over a year to break in a ss trowel and less then a couple weeks to break in my knife..

4. i can reach 8'' bead from the floor with a knife meaning less time on stilts...

mainly i just started using pan and knife because i lost my trowel and didn't feel like buying another because of the price.. plus i had 1 million misc. blades laying around so i just said f it..

so i'm using pan and knife and i dig it..

drywallmike08

only after reading posts on this site did i buy a hawk & trowel ( last weekend ) and you hawk guys can keeep em but i agree use what works for you at least i tried

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Capt-sheetrock

Thats cusee your a plaster HERO. When I do stucco, I use a hawk and trowel, and some times I break em out when the ole goats getting to busting my ba##s. However, I find that in drywall finishing, the pan is the money maker.

I can run a corner with the end of my trowel,, like I said, I learned it that way. A pan is just faster for mud, thats all.

Embrace the pan !!!!!!!!!!!! LOL,,,, become ONE with it !!!!

tricounty dwall

I hvae used a hawk and knives but never a trile. But as far as it goes for me im a pan and knife man. But as far as people were saying about running a 14 on flats with a hawk and trile. Id rather run my flat box . And bed my butts with a 12 and skim them with a 14. I have yet to see but 2 people here that used a hawk and they worked for me. Thats why i learned it.