Question about taping inside corners with a different knife

I was working on a house in Tacoma last month and the homeowner watched me for a bit. He used to do drywall himself and said, 'You know, a 5 inch knife in that corner will give you less mud to sand later.' I always used a 6 inch for everything. I tried his way on the next corner, using a 5 inch knife to lay the tape and then a 10 inch to finish it out. The difference was real. The smaller knife put the mud right where it needed to be without leaving a big ridge on the wall. It cut my sanding time on those inside corners down by at least a third. Now I keep a dedicated 5 inch knife in my bag just for that job. Has anyone else found a specific tool size that made a job way easier?

3 comments

3 Comments

zara_hunt2mo ago

That bit about the 5 inch knife making a smaller ridge makes total sense. I had a similar thing happen with a wider taping knife on flat seams. Using a 12 inch instead of my usual 10 just flattened everything out faster with fewer passes. It's funny how one small change can save so much time.

ivan_fisher992mo ago

Yeah, @zara_hunt, that extra width really helps on long flat seams. I switched to a 14 inch knife for ceilings and it cut my time in half. The wider blade just bridges over any small bumps in the drywall without digging in. It's all about spreading the pressure out over a bigger area. You end up with a flatter finish before you even start sanding.

tessa1772mo agoTop Commenter

My kitchen remodel taught me the same thing, @zara_hunt. Sometimes the right tool for the job is just the bigger version of what you already have.