howdy folks kirk and jason here with kirk giordano plastering today i want to answer
a question because i get asked this one a lot it's as far as trials people say kirk i'm at home depot
or i'm at lowe's or i'm online what trial do i buy should i buy a plastering trowel or a
concrete trowel in order to answer that you have to know the difference between
what is stucco and what is concrete well stucco is portland cement mixed with sand aggregate that's
stucco concrete is portland cement mixed with rocks that's concrete so you get the
the portland cement and depending on if you add sand or you add rocks you either get stucco or
concrete now i'm going to show you something just because i'm messing around here i thought what's
the best way to explain this and i was looking at the job we're doing and this guy is concrete
i said man who did this concrete it sloped properly it's got large expansion joints
all the aggregate there's that fancy pretty word i love aggregate aggregate could be sand
it could be concrete it could be rocks any kind of rock so the concrete was pressed in well so
the guys who did this i give them an a plus they know what they're doing anyway for the sake of
explaining the difference between a concrete child and a plastering child in a nutshell a
plastering trowel is five inches wide why because now we can play with it it's all about in your
wrist if it's five inches wide we can hold more mud and we can we can push the mud under things
move it do all kinds of things with it a concrete child as a rule is four inches wide well can i
use a concrete or child to plaster absolutely but it makes it a little bit more difficult
now this is rigid it's very rigid it's for pushing hard you're pushing hard because you want to push
those rocks below the surface of the concrete i'll show you uh i plan to do a little goofy
thing here so let me see if it works out i'm gonna pretend like that's a form right there
Okay, my brother Lou mixed me up some stucco to prove a point, guys.
Okay, let me try something here.
not sure if this is enough, sure enough, looks like enough but just say, for example,
you're doing a lot of concrete-like football field or half a football field or say the driver you're
doing a big job like that now this right here i can already tell that's got a little too much
stucco to prove my point, so i'm going to shave it off i'm going to tell you the uh
the differences how to clean them and get into a few things like that since i'm
on the subject okay say that's a form guys you got your form and lamb get that off okay so
we need some aggregate how about we take some gravel and we just use gravel as an aggregate
okay now as a rule you could take your trowel and you're going to push that in
you're gonna push it in push it in push it in and this is how
this how you get like say exposed aggregate finish anything i got extra i'm gonna put
right here because i'm just trying to prove a point now guys okay so
concrete you'll use you will use the uh the rocks and you just go back and forth back and forth
i like a carbon trowel myself ah where's my handy dandy beautiful carbon trowel okay a carbon trowel
now that's flexible it's uh it won't rust now you take the stainless steel
i'm not certain what kind of metals this is but it's uh some kind of carbon uh allies alloys and
you've got magnesium nickel and a few other ingredients to get a stainless steel child
these hardly ever rust but they're thicker it's a thicker metal it's uh it's good for pushing in
what i'm doing right here i could already see my rocks are still on the outside so let's throw some
bigger rocks in because we're going to prove a point here bigger rocks how about some congo rocks
oh these are my daughter's rock she was building a fish pond so okay now if you're doing concrete
and you want the psi or the strength level a lot stronger you'll put bigger the rock the say
for 3 000 psi strain you use a certain type of rock if you want 3 500 psi strain
you add bigger rock bigger aggregates so i'm going to use my pretty trowel because it's easier for me
this stainless steel doesn't flex as much this is a plastering trowel it flexes a lot more while
i'm on the subject guys here's the difference people call me they said kirk i bought one of
those plastering trials it doesn't work too good i don't know if the camera will show this this
this is a perfect radius that's not a plastering trowel guys it's for swimming
pools but it's not a plastering child it's for concrete but it's not a plastering trout
now this is a plastering trowel if i had my choice all of them would be like this now notice the end
is arc the end is arc this is a full radius how about i do this i put this on it can you see that
just it doesn't have the full radius just the ends are arced so it's it's straight here
this is the toe this is the heel this is the shank okay so it's straight here it's straight here now
this one is for again either swimming pools or concrete and it's stainless steel it's a curry
trowel you can buy these at bond tools and while we're on the subject i know i'm across a lot of
subjects right now it might get complicated anyway we buy trials personally the best
i buy them because i have them some some of them are 30 years old that's how long they
last hell i got one close to lose age 200 years old but for you guys if you go to home depot
or lowe's or any of those they do have a lot of good trials now they have
marshall towns and curries and a lot of very good trials so where you weaken or do it yourself guys
you can buy a child how many times you're going to use it once twice three times we buy a trial
we use it a long time we use it for years and years so i'll go either to bond tools or
i'll go even on amazon it's actually easier and just purchase my tools and i know which
ones i want because i want them to last and i always like a wood handle guys a wood handle
you'll get a good grip on it say like like this cool wood handle here the rubber handle is like
that guy right there that's a marshalltown that's a good trowel of a wood handle that's a that's the
[ __ ] guys it's that's what you want a good wood handle give you a strong grip nobody ever beat
your arm wrestling if you get a good wood handle and you use it for a while anyway so i've got this
this this mud here and now guys what i'm doing i'm just going back and forth back and forth
and i'm pushing i'm pushing these rocks in and it might even be hitting some of the stuff that's in
it so when you're doing concrete you want the four inch the four inch gives you more strength
but it's not a plastering trial that's the difference okay guys um so now
this is what the majority of people don't or don't understand about the difference of a plastering
trial versus a concrete trial can you use either one sure you can i do uh if nothing else
i'll make a trial so you see that guys now imagine this little bitty
this little betty piece right here i got some rocks right here they're hitting something so
i'm gonna push them in so and you see how for example this is just a little bitty template
a little bitty template but if i'm doing something like this or a half a football field
or something huge what you guys are going to be doing is you're going to be putting all
your weight you'll see those guys they'll come out and they'll have concrete knee pads on and
in order to get those big rocks and you can bet the rocks that are in here are humongous bigger
than any of the rocks i'm using so they're putting both hands and they're going this way
and what they're doing is they're pushing the rocks they're pushing the aggregate down into
so you can get a pretty surface and so there's in a nutshell guys there's the big difference
if you guys are newbies or um apprentices or your homeowners you're only going to use it once or
twice a 13 by five inch is your best trial because it's five inches wide which means you could you
can go up you can move it your hand your wrist dictates where the plaster goes not the trowel
the trial is just your weapon of choice man this one i can use because i got a lot of experience
this five inch is much better because now you can put it where you want and after a few years
of this you can go to bar and nobody can beat your arm wrestling i'll show you another thing
too guys as far as a trowel if it's if it's got to be bent the right way too say i did a video
about eight nine years ago and i was showing okay see right here this is a shank that's a long shank
this is what i use for interior plastering because it's got a long shank a short shank would be about
this much here but the longer the shank right here that's just cast aluminum uh the longer the shank
the better the blade will be it'll have it'll be more rigid so it won't banana out
and when i say banana out i mean it like say for example if you look down a trowel and it's bowed
say it's bowed this way and you're trying to plaster it'll never happen and that i'm
going to put a link to a video that i did seven eight years ago and my son came out
my youngest not jay on the camera and he threw the trout he says that that trowel is useless
dad it won't work or the material sucks and i said boy it ain't the trow it's what happens
is the rivets you got rivets in here the rivets go through the this cast iron or uh cast metal
cast aluminum okay it goes through the metal now if it gets jacked up say like
i've been on jobs and we had one where it was five stories and i heard a child you
hear that hear that sound i thought oh sh oh crap there goes my good trout and it just hit
scaffold after scaffold and it landed all the way at the bottom and i thought well
my good trowel is beat up they're not really beat up they just go into the boneyard
in the truck which i'll show you in a minute uh and we'll use it for something else safe i
like scraping concrete scraping this so we don't ever throw them away unless they're
really gonna uh i was gonna show you in the truck because at the end i want to show you how
to clean them too so i remember it was about a month ago we dropped this guy right here
and i thought man i know that sound because listen it's just and then listen to this sound
this there's a big difference; anyhow, this child here is my favorite, and it's kind of sensitive,
so when it got dropped, i had to pick it up and baby it and bring it back to life,
so that being said, I'll show you another couple things guys
um how do you if you want to clean a trial I'll show you something okay
let me go back to the boneyard and the truck here and show you the old trowels that
didn't make the grade, or they did make the grade, and they've seen better days
I'll see. We got a lot of trials here i mean, i have so many i had to put some in
my garage once they get so beat up, guys um, we just use them for scraping stuff
uh or things like that, so they never actually get thrown away unless they're really beat up
and how do you clean trowel guys here's what I'll do I'll have a margin try my back pocket
throughout the day what i'm cleaning is the shank i'm cleaning the shank here so I'll have a margin
trowel. I'll just keep going like this, keeping that shank clean, and then I'll clean the blade.
Just like that and i'll do that about 25 times a day that keeps the trial clean keeps the shank
clean so the mud if it builds up in here it won't it'll bend it it'll bow it this sandpaper i swear
this about 25 30 years old it's been in my garage because i used to like a full take
sandpaper these memories and clean them here's a fast way to do it guys uh buying yourself some
sand now put the sand on it put it on something flat guys spray a little bit of water on it
and let let your feet do the work because now i mean me i'm only 180 pounds but
i'll just go like this now if i'm i'm putting 180 pounds on here with just my feet
that's saving my arms a lot of a lot of work because my weight alone will clean it if you
do this at lunch time you do it after work you'll keep that trowel where you could use it for about
40 50 years and then pass it on to your kids or pass it on to some other young bucks that
want to learn the trade anyhow the trials are important five inch width guys for plastering
forage with for concrete just remember that roll you can't go wrong and if you
do have a four inch use it you could use your shoe guys it doesn't matter use what you got
but for us we buy quality tools and you guys home depot and lowe's they do have a lot of good trials
now because i was looking at them anyhow i wanted to point that out because so many people say kurt
what the heck is the difference between a concrete trial and a plastering trial a plastering trial we
have full control full skill we direct the plaster where we want it concrete trowel, you got little
control but you can learn to do it anyhow guys i just wanted to point that out because it was
asked of me we thank you for watching and as usual we'll see you guys on the next one.
Hi, folks. Jason here, and i'm here to tell you something you probably already know that like
most content creators on youtube, my dad and i are members of the Amazon affiliates program.
What does that mean? That means that we can show and link you to some of the most commonly used
tools in the plastering trade on amazon. Like our hawks and trowels, scoops floats.
Some of the other things are battery-operated tools for breakout and cutting, etc.
now, if you buy those tools from those links, we earn a small percentage of that that allows us
to keep making these videos and keep putting out quality content for you folks to enjoy
once again folks we thank you for watching, and i really enjoy all your comments
if you guys like this video, please click the like button down below and also if you enjoy what we do
subscribe to our channel so we can keep making these videos for you my name is kirk and jay we
thank you for watching and from the entire Giordano family we'll see on the next one.