Bonding with a 45 degree mitre got me after 8 years on the trowel

Always used a standard trowel to butter my mitres and would fight the corners till the mortar fell off. Old foreman in Columbus watched me for a minute and tossed me his margin trowel, said to use that for the angles. Once I tried it on a fireplace surround, the mitres held clean without all the extra tapping. Anyone else got a tool they thought was for pointing only but saved their butt on something else?

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1 Comment

sullivan.piper1mo ago

Man, that brings back something I read in like a masonry forum years back about using a margin trowel for tight spots. I never really put two and two together until you spelled it out like that. It makes total sense though, the smaller blade gives you way more control in those corners where a full trowel is just too clumsy and the mortar wants to slide right off the edge. I always thought margin trowels were just for cleaning out joints or getting into small cracks, but using one for mitres sounds like a total game changer. I might have to pick one up and give it a shot on my next stone job, cause fighting with mortar falling off is the worst part of that whole deal.