A commercial foreman told me my corners were trash - changed my whole approach

I had been doing flatwork for about 4 years and thought my edges were decent. This one foreman on a warehouse job in Oklahoma City walked over and pointed to a corner I had just finished. He said "look at that edge roll, you're floating too flat into the corner." He showed me how to work the corner with a margin trowel first before the edger. Now I hit every corner twice and the finish looks way sharper. Anybody else have a tough foreman that taught them something they still use?

3 comments

3 Comments

zara_sanchez10d ago

Nah I actually never bought into that margin trowel first method. If your float work is right going into the corner the edger should do it clean in one pass, not trying to hide rough work under extra steps.

anthonynelson9d ago

Totally feel you on this. I've been saying the same thing for years to guys who swear by the margin trowel first. If you've got your mud mixed right and your float work is dialed in, that edger should glide right through without needing to scrape a bunch of extra mud out of the corner. It's like people add steps just to feel busy or something. Solid work speaks for itself, no need for all that extra nonsense.

olivia_white939d ago

Is it really that deep though? Like we are talking about drywall finishing here not brain surgery. I get that everyone has their own way of doing things but acting like one method is trash while another is gospel seems a bit much. The margin trowel first thing works fine for some people and if it helps them get a clean corner who cares. At the end of the day the finish matters not how many tools you used to get there. Feels like people just want to argue over nothing most of the time.