A customer in Austin told me 'the mud is just the canvas, the real art is in the sanding' and it completely reframed how I approach finishing.

After 8 years of rushing the final sand, I now spend an extra hour per room just on hand-sanding the corners and seams, which has cut my callbacks for touch-ups by half, so what's one small change in your process that made a huge difference in quality?

4 comments

4 Comments

davis.ivan2mo ago

Man, my buddy used to skip cleaning his paint sprayer nozzles right away to save ten minutes. He'd let the gunk dry overnight. Ended up spending half a Saturday chipping it out with a toothpick when it clogged solid on a big job. Now he soaks them while he's still packing up the truck. That tiny bit of evening cleanup saves him whole mornings.

theathomas25d ago

C'mon, sometimes letting stuff soak overnight does a better job than scrubbing right away.

mary_schmidt25d ago

davis.ivan that thing about your buddy and the sprayer nozzles hit me right in the memory. I had a friend who did cabinet painting on the side. He would get so excited to finish a job that he'd just toss his brushes in a bucket of water and leave them. One time he found a brush with all the bristles locked together like a solid block of glue. He spent a whole evening trying to save it with mineral spirits and a wire brush, and in the end he just threw it out. Now he washes his brushes out in the sink while the last coat is still tacky and it saves him so much grief.

andrew6462mo ago

Wait you were rushing the sanding for eight whole years... that's wild to me. I can't even imagine how many corners you must have had to go back and fix. An extra hour per room sounds like nothing compared to all those callbacks.