That guy on the jobsite told me to stop using a trowel for everything

I was finishing a driveway in Austin last summer and this older finisher named Dave walked over. He watched me try to smooth out a patch with my trowel and he just shook his head. Said I was working way too hard and handed me a float. He showed me how using a float first gets the surface flat without all the extra passes. That one tip cut my finish time by maybe 20 minutes per slab. Has anyone else had a old timer call them out on something small that actually made a big difference?

3 comments

3 Comments

rodriguez.felix15d ago

Yeah, did your wrists cramp up after a while too? Because mine sounded like a bag of popcorn by the end of a day before I started using a float. I mean I was out here gripping that trowel like it owed me money, probably making everything worse. Dave sounds like a real one for handing you that float without making you figure it out the hard way first.

laura_allen15d ago

Read a blog post saying floats save your wrists too.

lucasw8215d ago

Honestly that blog post is spot on but people still sleep on it. Ngl I used to think floats were just for making the finish look good, not for saving my joints. But once I actually paid attention to how much force I was putting through my wrist versus my arm, it made total sense. So did you try switching to a float and notice a difference right away, or did it take a few days before your hand stopped aching?