Noticed a huge difference in my seams after switching to a different knife angle 3 weeks ago

I was getting these tiny gaps on commercial jobs in Raleigh, and an older installer pointed out I was holding my blade too flat. Tweaked it to a steeper angle and my seams are basically invisible now - anyone else have a simple adjustment like that totally change their work?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kim12d ago

Oh man, that's such a game changer. I had almost the exact same thing happen early on and it drove me crazy until someone showed me the fix.

adamthompson11d ago

That tiny gaps thing you mentioned hit home for me. I was working on a job in Asheville a while back and couldn't figure out why my seams kept pulling apart. Turns out I was leaning the knife too far forward, almost scraping the mud off instead of pushing it into the joint. @the_kim mentioned a similar fix with blade angle in a thread last month, and I finally tried it her way. Steeper angle, like you said, and boom, no more gaps. It's funny how something so small can totally wreck your work for weeks. Your mileage may vary, but for me it was worth the experiment.