Saw the difference mudding with a 6-inch vs 10-inch knife on a ceiling repair

I had this small water stain on my ceiling from a leaky pipe last winter, maybe 2 feet across. First time i tried using my 6-inch knife to feather it out and it looked like garbage, real lumpy. Let it dry, sanded it down, and tried again with a 10-inch knife. Night and day difference. The bigger knife spreads the mud so much more even, especially on a ceiling where gravity is working against you. Took maybe 3 coats total with the 10-inch versus the 5 i was doing before. Has anyone else noticed how much easier ceilings go with a wider knife or am i just late to this?

2 comments

2 Comments

shah.evan29d ago

Yo for real, the 10 inch is a total game changer on ceilings. I switched a couple months back and it just glides so much smoother, barely any sanding needed after.

shane_perry2929d ago

You know what's funny, @shah.evan, I had the opposite experience at first because I was using some cheap 9 inch from the hardware store and thought "how different could it be?" Then I grabbed my buddy's 10 inch to do a patch job on my bathroom ceiling and man, I was like "I've been doing this wrong my whole life." It's wild how that extra inch changes everything about how the mud lays down. I ended up having to redo the whole bathroom because the difference was just that noticeable.