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Saw a crew hang board in a 1920s school in Dayton and it made me rethink how I finish seams
I was doing a small repair job at an old school building in Dayton last month and got to watch another crew hang board in one of the classrooms. What got me was how they finished their seams. They used a banjo for the first coat and didn't touch a knife until coat two, just ran tape flat and fast, maybe 40 feet in a few minutes. My old foreman back in the 90s had us hand tape every butt joint and feather by feel, no corner tools at all. I still do most of mine by hand out of habit, but watching those guys made me admit the tool saves your wrists on a big lid. The weird part is their second coat looked smoother than mine does after three passes because they kept the mud thin. I tried the banjo on a garage ceiling the next week and blew through a bucket of all purpose in an afternoon. Any of you still taping by hand on purpose, or did everyone switch over once the banjos got cheap?
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adams.barbara25d ago
That line about their second coat looking smoother after two passes than yours does after three is the part I'd push back on. Thin mud is doing the work there, not the banjo. I've seen guys run a banjo and still get lumps because they loaded it heavy thinking more mud means fewer coats. Hand taping forces you to feel the joint and scrape it tight, so you learn fast what thin really means. A banjo just gets you there quicker once you already know. Switch tools all you want, but the skill is in the wrist and the mud mix, not the box.
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