Finally switched to setting my corners first instead of last

I used to always do my flat panels first and then come back to tape my corners at the end. Thought I was saving time by getting the big areas out of the way. Then last week I was on a job over near the old mill district and this old timer who was doing the finishing stopped me and said I was making extra work for myself. He showed me how if you run your corner tape first the whole wall muds flatter because you're not fighting against the compound drying in different stages. I tried it on a small bathroom job I had and honestly I cut about 45 minutes off the whole taping process. Has anyone else had a crew lead show them a simple workflow change that made a big difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

cora_west53d ago

Oh man, isn't that always how it goes? You think you've got a system figured out and then someone with forty years of experience just casually drops a better way to do it. It's kind of like how I used to load my dishwasher with the cups on the bottom first and then realized the water doesn't even hit them right. Sometimes the smallest changes to your order of operations save you the most headache. That old timer probably saved you a ton of frustration down the road.

fisher.jessica3d ago

Reminds me of how my grandpa used to sharpen a knife. He had this weird angle he held it at, and I figured he was just doing it wrong until he showed me the edge lasted twice as long. Sometimes the old school folks have a reason for their quirks, even if they can't explain it in a way that makes sense to the rest of us.

samreed3d ago

Buddy of mine @cora_west5 tried fixing his grandpa's old lawnmower and found out the "wrong" spark plug gap actually ran smoother.