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A retired installer in Cleveland showed me his old hawk and trowel.

He said, 'We mixed our own mud and never used a pan.' Has anyone else learned a trick from someone who's been out of the trade for a while?
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kim.dylan
kim.dylan6d ago
Totally agree with @grace_bailey34 about the lime trick. My old foreman used to do that for plaster repair on old brick. He'd also mix in a little bit of dish soap as a plasticizer when we were working overhead, made the mud stickier and way easier to manage. Those guys had a fix for everything before all the pre-bagged stuff showed up.
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grace_bailey34
Yeah, that old school way is solid. Mixing your own mud lets you control the consistency perfectly for what you're doing. I still do it for certain jobs because the bag stuff can be too wet or set up wrong. The real trick he probably knew was adding a bit of lime to the mix for a better bond on some surfaces. You don't see that much anymore.
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