Tried using a cheap harbor freight trowel on a big commercial job last month

Figured I'd save $15 on a trowel for a 5000 brick wall in downtown Austin. By hour 3 the handle was loose and the edge was chipping, cost me way more time than it saved. Any of you guys found a decent budget trowel that actually holds up or should I just stick with Marshalltown?

3 comments

3 Comments

ericcraig1d ago

Wait, are you saying he was using the trowel on a scaffold with a loose handle? I thought the whole issue was just the edge chipping and the handle loosening up from the rough work, not a fall hazard. Even on the ground that sloppy handle would make it impossible to keep your mortar joints straight, so the height probably didn't matter much.

mileslane1d ago

...and that's exactly why I quit messing with cheap trowels for anything bigger than a small repair job. A loose handle on a 5000 brick wall is a nightmare, no way you can keep a consistent bed depth with that kind of slop. So here's what I gotta ask you, were you using that cheap trowel on a high-rise scaffold or were you down on the ground where you could at least swap it out quick? Because I've seen guys try to save money on tools for ladders and it's a totally different problem when you're trying to balance a bucket and a chipping edge.

phoenixk6418h ago

Mileslane over here acting like a loose trowel handle is some kind of scaffold-specific crisis when really it's just a bad tool no matter where you're standing, am I right? Next thing you know, people will be blaming the mortar mix for their own shaky hands and calling it a safety hazard. If you're up high balancing a bucket and a chipping edge, maybe the real problem is you decided to save twenty bucks on the trowel instead of buying a proper one that won't fall apart mid-row. But hey, at least on the ground you can just kick the pieces around and call it a day.