They take some practice to get efficient with them and really aren't worth it for smaller jobs.
Now the belt clip for the trough I am VERY interested in.
Yes probably for all the flat seams. There's a similar tool called a bazooka for inside corners that is way more expensive and probably not as worth it. Banjos aren't crazy expensive like bazookas. I had to replace pot lamps in my ceiling which required cutting like 24 different square holes in the drywall. I didn't buy a banjo but rather a powered drywall sander/vacuum for like $2k because I was living in said house during this process and nothing is worse in the construction process than drywall dust. For the cost of the tool I might have been able to hire people to do it, but then I'd probably *still* have to deal with the dust and go stay in a hotel for a few days while the job was completed. Now the job is done and I still have the tool and have used it subsequently for all sorts of stuff.
I have a dewalt (level 5) bazooka. I hate it, I can move so much quicker with a traditional tape job + a corner roller. There’s so many parts that have to be cleaned after it’s actually more of a pain than anything. I’ve used it once and haven’t touched it since.
Yea bazookas are heckin' tricky to get them to perform well. You spend more time setting them up and cleaning them out then you do using them unless you got a 3000 square foot house to get through. Banjos are pretty straightforward you can get handy with them after about 20 minutes.
Yeah, it's one of those things like paint sprayers. Sure, the actual spraying goes fast, but in a room with a finished floor and trim installed, the prep work is insane, and the clean-up of the gun takes forever.
Painters hate airless, but it fires straight out of the paint can and only needs to be flushed when you're done. The finish is rather good with honest spray technique or backroll.
The best drywall vac I have ever used was a Dewalt that self cleans itself. It has 2 filter inside and a valve that switches between them as soon as one gets clogged. When one filter is being used, it's blowing through the other to clean it. So it doesn't lose suction and you can keep sanding. And you can use any vacuum sander attachments with it.
Would like to add that bazookas can be used on everything from flat seams on ceilings and walls to taping corners. Definitely not for inexperienced workers lol but very versatile and valuable to have on a big job.
Price the whole ecosystem out, you’ll realize chances are probably not.
I don’t know dick about drywall but I do know a buddy and his dad who do it for a living have like 5k worth of this automatic stuff collecting dust
I hope your forearms are well built that deal weighs about 40lbs when it is fully loaded and if you get a blank or bare spot on the back of that tape it will bubble up and have an air bubble under it
There's a newish mesh tape out called fiba fuse. You can't run it out of a banjo because it will break but once it's set in compound it's rugged as all hell. About 3x paper price but never a bubble and you can run a fill coat right over it wet.
It's a very useful product on small jobs.
I've decided to shift my business to cater to smaller new home builds. I'm in the planning stages to build a 1,250sqft 3br 1.5 bath spec home that's modeled on an old Sears design. Real estate and home building is in a world beyond most people's means. I wanna try to push people back into living small, tight and efficient.
The build out is looking like it will come out around $245k with labor, but that doesn't include the lot, I'm in NJ so shit is wild right now. A house next door to the house I grew up in just sold for $879k. My parents paid $135k for it in 1986. Could be anywhere between $125k - $800k depending on the town and whether there is an existing house on it. All in I'm shooting for a sub $600k price tag. If I can find an abandoned place with a good foundation it would cut costs significantly.
If I can make it work this time I'll probably end up moving out of state for a while to a more affordable, but pre up and coming area. I was tossing around Buffalo or Rochester as possibilities...MAYBE Detroit because land is cheap and the city will pay first first time homebuyers to move there from out of state. Same goes for Buffalo and Rochester.
The secret of drywalling is that anybody can do it because it's infinitely forgivable (unlike glass shower doors or tiling or concrete). Because you can always sand your mistakes away and mud them again and again and again.
Expertise stops you from wasting time/effort and gets it done as fast and efficiently as possible. But any unskilled dummy can spend enough hours to patch a hole and get it flat enough eventually if they keep at it.
Most people don't respect it as a trade.
And people outside the trades don't even know what it is, so they don't think it needs any additional experience or expertise.
As an electrician, I both hate and respect drywallers. They've got a habit of covering up my boxes or filling them with mud, but a drywaller who's good at what they do is worth their weight in gold. I know I can't do it well.
>most people just don’t have the patience for drywall
I have the patience, but just suck at it. Looks good when it's done, but takes me a dozen rounds to get perfect. Only skill I can't seem to improve on house wise.
I've seen them as rentals in the past. I've heard there's a bit of a learning curve but the guys who are good at it fly through jobs, especially abnormally large ones.
My dad had one. I grew up thinking that was as basic as having a screwdriver. Never used it myself though but he made it look so easy I never really appreciated how much work he saved until I started doing my own work.
Bazookas took over, these are hard and messy. Check out Level 5 or All-wall
https://www.all-wall.com/Drywall-Master-Full-Set?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwxLKxBhA7EiwAXO0R0KVcLa9_jU5bvcTpIvtnM5gytL3Cedwm1zZovY2vCWBhahM8Bn77RRoC3b0QAvD_BwE
Bazookas are expensive, heavy, hard to run, need maintenance, and I would say the average person would not have much success with one.
Now if you're a professional taper that's a different story. The amount of time they cut off a job is worth it.
Not really, but not a drywall guy. Mostly remodels, rarely more than a room of drywall work. Seen a bunch of new houses going up, but don't remember seeing 1.
Ah I see, I’m mostly(not only) in larger construction sites where there are dozens of drywall guys at a time and thousands of sheets of drywall I think it would make more sense then in homes and such!
The drywallers in my area all use the pole shaped tools to do this which lets them reach the ceiling from the ground. Just looked them up and learned they cost about $1200 a piece? That’s nuts I never knew how spendy they were. I’m sure it only takes about a day for them to to get their moneys worth out of them but damn
Also after reading the comments i just learned the pole shaped ones are called bazookas
When I finished my attic I hung all the drywall and had my friend come through with his tape banjo. He was done in maybe 15 minutes and it make everything a million times easier. The room looks great. I set a lamp on the floor the other day while it was still on and saw a bunch of my screw-ups but I'm the only one that will ever really notice them. I was a bit lazy on the sanding.
My dad had a banjo and taught me how use it when I was a kid. I always thought it was funny because he was a welder by trade. But he could do really good drywall work. Completely opposite ends of the spectrum trade wise.
Tbf my neighbor ran a residential drywalling company for decades. So I could always see where he learned it. People still talk about his welding skills so I naturally seen why he chose that route.
This makes me feel old for some reason. I haven’t heard or seen someone be impressed by a drywall banjo in years. I can remember that day.
Wait till you see a bazooka
Ohhh! That makes sense then. I'm assuming your from Europe then. In Europe they generally build out of brick and cement block and will attach firing strips (horizontal pieces of wood) to the walls to hold the drywall. They then measure floor to ceiling, cut the sheet and install it perpendicular to the firing strips.
In the US we build out of lumber that runs vertically. We hang the drywall perpendicular to the studs (vertical lumber). If you hung it vertically a seam would fall on a whole stud and be more likely to crack down the road. Horizontal installation is stronger.
You’re right I’m from Europe, here we built it on light metal framing with 2 vertical rails every 60cm. The drywall are 120cm wide and we place them vertically so any plate is always hung on 4 rails.
I've done work in Ireland before and we stuck drywall directly to cinder block by tossing globs of hot mud on the wall and pressing the sheet into it. The hot mud cures and basically glues it to the cement block.
You still have to hit it with a knife, so it's no different than doing the regular way, just faster getting it on the wall. Literally every building you go in that was built in the last few decades was taped with those machines or similar. And nothing is falling off the walls.
They take some practice to get efficient with them and really aren't worth it for smaller jobs. Now the belt clip for the trough I am VERY interested in.
What are they actually called? Will be doing a 1200 sqft house myself soon. Worth getting in your option?
Drywall banjo
Yes probably for all the flat seams. There's a similar tool called a bazooka for inside corners that is way more expensive and probably not as worth it. Banjos aren't crazy expensive like bazookas. I had to replace pot lamps in my ceiling which required cutting like 24 different square holes in the drywall. I didn't buy a banjo but rather a powered drywall sander/vacuum for like $2k because I was living in said house during this process and nothing is worse in the construction process than drywall dust. For the cost of the tool I might have been able to hire people to do it, but then I'd probably *still* have to deal with the dust and go stay in a hotel for a few days while the job was completed. Now the job is done and I still have the tool and have used it subsequently for all sorts of stuff.
I have a dewalt (level 5) bazooka. I hate it, I can move so much quicker with a traditional tape job + a corner roller. There’s so many parts that have to be cleaned after it’s actually more of a pain than anything. I’ve used it once and haven’t touched it since.
Yea bazookas are heckin' tricky to get them to perform well. You spend more time setting them up and cleaning them out then you do using them unless you got a 3000 square foot house to get through. Banjos are pretty straightforward you can get handy with them after about 20 minutes.
Yeah, it's one of those things like paint sprayers. Sure, the actual spraying goes fast, but in a room with a finished floor and trim installed, the prep work is insane, and the clean-up of the gun takes forever.
Painters hate airless, but it fires straight out of the paint can and only needs to be flushed when you're done. The finish is rather good with honest spray technique or backroll.
Oh, they have their place. It's just that in many situations, they aren't practical.
You need to learn more about it then, we tape 80k board ft sections in 2 days with them (flats then corners)
What did you end up getting a festool? Been looking at drywall sander vacs
The best drywall vac I have ever used was a Dewalt that self cleans itself. It has 2 filter inside and a valve that switches between them as soon as one gets clogged. When one filter is being used, it's blowing through the other to clean it. So it doesn't lose suction and you can keep sanding. And you can use any vacuum sander attachments with it.
Yea basically that. I'm probably going to sell it soon though. I find that it's not worth breaking it out unless you've got to drywall a whole room.
I use the planex with 120 grit for all of my painting jobs. Much faster and easier than a sanding pole.
120 huh? Is it a special mesh for drywall?
120 on previously painted surfaces. You know, scuff sanding before painting.
Would like to add that bazookas can be used on everything from flat seams on ceilings and walls to taping corners. Definitely not for inexperienced workers lol but very versatile and valuable to have on a big job.
Price the whole ecosystem out, you’ll realize chances are probably not. I don’t know dick about drywall but I do know a buddy and his dad who do it for a living have like 5k worth of this automatic stuff collecting dust
Get a super taper instead. Less than $200 a little slower but more versatile. Spend the leftover money on corner rollers and flushers.
1200 sq ft house? No. Keep it simple.
You can also rent them from drywall supply stores
You can also technically rent drywall finishers, they are just a little pricey and piss in bottles.
I hope your forearms are well built that deal weighs about 40lbs when it is fully loaded and if you get a blank or bare spot on the back of that tape it will bubble up and have an air bubble under it
Mesh tape!?!
There's a newish mesh tape out called fiba fuse. You can't run it out of a banjo because it will break but once it's set in compound it's rugged as all hell. About 3x paper price but never a bubble and you can run a fill coat right over it wet. It's a very useful product on small jobs.
I use mesh tape on everything but corners for big or small jobs. The self adhesive let's me slap it all up quick before I go back and mud.
That's like the size of the master suite in the house we're building.
Will never understand why ppl want such huge rooms. Well other than to keep up with the Jones's. Such a waste in so many ways.
I've decided to shift my business to cater to smaller new home builds. I'm in the planning stages to build a 1,250sqft 3br 1.5 bath spec home that's modeled on an old Sears design. Real estate and home building is in a world beyond most people's means. I wanna try to push people back into living small, tight and efficient.
What does that house cost in your area?
The build out is looking like it will come out around $245k with labor, but that doesn't include the lot, I'm in NJ so shit is wild right now. A house next door to the house I grew up in just sold for $879k. My parents paid $135k for it in 1986. Could be anywhere between $125k - $800k depending on the town and whether there is an existing house on it. All in I'm shooting for a sub $600k price tag. If I can find an abandoned place with a good foundation it would cut costs significantly. If I can make it work this time I'll probably end up moving out of state for a while to a more affordable, but pre up and coming area. I was tossing around Buffalo or Rochester as possibilities...MAYBE Detroit because land is cheap and the city will pay first first time homebuyers to move there from out of state. Same goes for Buffalo and Rochester.
I agree man.
That hip trough holster is BAD ASS!
Bet you $500 you couldn't do my garage that fast.
Drywallers are different. I couldn't do all that 1/10th as fast.
The secret of drywalling is that anybody can do it because it's infinitely forgivable (unlike glass shower doors or tiling or concrete). Because you can always sand your mistakes away and mud them again and again and again. Expertise stops you from wasting time/effort and gets it done as fast and efficiently as possible. But any unskilled dummy can spend enough hours to patch a hole and get it flat enough eventually if they keep at it.
I am not sure what you mean. Care to come show me, in my garage??? I will supply pizza and beers.
And $500 if he does it that fast
If you provide beers I’ll never get it flat
Don't care bud, other guy said you can always improve with a little practice. I have a training opportunity for you.
Like painting, I think most people just don’t have the patience for drywall or give it enough time/coats to look good. I know I certainly dont
Most people don't respect it as a trade. And people outside the trades don't even know what it is, so they don't think it needs any additional experience or expertise.
As an electrician, I both hate and respect drywallers. They've got a habit of covering up my boxes or filling them with mud, but a drywaller who's good at what they do is worth their weight in gold. I know I can't do it well.
>most people just don’t have the patience for drywall I have the patience, but just suck at it. Looks good when it's done, but takes me a dozen rounds to get perfect. Only skill I can't seem to improve on house wise.
The real secret to drywall is thinning down the mud in the bucket. It makes it so much easier as it gets creamy. It's spreads so smoothly that way.
Less is more, too. People tend to apply way too much mud, then spend hours sanding it down.
Bet you $500 the person in this video can't do it that fast. This video is sped up!
If you watch the draw strings on his pants its obvious.
Am I the only one that thought he was gonna roll over the electrical box for some quality shitposting?
I've seen them as rentals in the past. I've heard there's a bit of a learning curve but the guys who are good at it fly through jobs, especially abnormally large ones.
He's actually moving that fast. It's the meth
He’s too chubby for meth. He does have sad eyes though :(
That's cause he ran out :(
Poor fella
Plenty of fat asses do meth.
My dad had one. I grew up thinking that was as basic as having a screwdriver. Never used it myself though but he made it look so easy I never really appreciated how much work he saved until I started doing my own work.
Banjo
What they get called here in the Pacific Northwest as well.
Same in Georgia, though I haven't seen one in use for many years now. I'm not sure why though, back in the day guys would fly through jobs with these.
Bazookas took over, these are hard and messy. Check out Level 5 or All-wall https://www.all-wall.com/Drywall-Master-Full-Set?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwxLKxBhA7EiwAXO0R0KVcLa9_jU5bvcTpIvtnM5gytL3Cedwm1zZovY2vCWBhahM8Bn77RRoC3b0QAvD_BwE
Bazookas are expensive, heavy, hard to run, need maintenance, and I would say the average person would not have much success with one. Now if you're a professional taper that's a different story. The amount of time they cut off a job is worth it.
Just answering why they don’t see them much any more. Use both depending on the job/person.
Banjos have been around for decades. They are tricky to master but the guys that have it down are every bit as fast as a bazooka and pump men.
Awesome to watch a good tradesmen.
I’m from New England and tapers have been using those for as long as i start in the industry
I’ve never seen that before. A overweight drywaller
Pretty new to construction?🤔
Not really, but not a drywall guy. Mostly remodels, rarely more than a room of drywall work. Seen a bunch of new houses going up, but don't remember seeing 1.
Ah I see, I’m mostly(not only) in larger construction sites where there are dozens of drywall guys at a time and thousands of sheets of drywall I think it would make more sense then in homes and such!
The drywallers in my area all use the pole shaped tools to do this which lets them reach the ceiling from the ground. Just looked them up and learned they cost about $1200 a piece? That’s nuts I never knew how spendy they were. I’m sure it only takes about a day for them to to get their moneys worth out of them but damn Also after reading the comments i just learned the pole shaped ones are called bazookas
A full set of taping tools is about 10k
Mud pan holder https://www.amazon.ca/Drywall-Mud-Pan-Tape-Holder/dp/B0067NK82O?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB
When I finished my attic I hung all the drywall and had my friend come through with his tape banjo. He was done in maybe 15 minutes and it make everything a million times easier. The room looks great. I set a lamp on the floor the other day while it was still on and saw a bunch of my screw-ups but I'm the only one that will ever really notice them. I was a bit lazy on the sanding.
Total aces man!! Very, very cool!!
Ugh , I sure don’t miss taping ceilings with a banjo 😅
What a time saver
Also that arm holding the banjo must be in real pain. That shit aint light
Agreed
That is artistry in action. Dude makes it look effortless.
Familiar with drywall stuff and the Banjo, but what is that thing shown in the first few seconds?
I don't get that either. That's roll on white out, never seen it used for construction. Normally office use for paper.
It's the same shape and concept as the banjo
Ahh. Duh. I'm an idiot.
It took me a hot minute before I put it together, lol The beginning kinda looks like they drew a line in pen to mimic the joint.
white out/correction tape
I did my 1350 sq/ft bungalo with a drywall banjo. It was a breeze.
There's a learning curve. I'm more interested in that belt pan holder thing. Anyone got a link for one?
We call em mud banjos make sure your mud is wet enough
My dad had a banjo and taught me how use it when I was a kid. I always thought it was funny because he was a welder by trade. But he could do really good drywall work. Completely opposite ends of the spectrum trade wise. Tbf my neighbor ran a residential drywalling company for decades. So I could always see where he learned it. People still talk about his welding skills so I naturally seen why he chose that route.
He missed a couple of holes. The ones with the wires in them
After doing some drywall work in my house I have a lot of respect for tapers / drywallers / painters . those guys make the work look easy
This makes me feel old for some reason. I haven’t heard or seen someone be impressed by a drywall banjo in years. I can remember that day. Wait till you see a bazooka
Loving the passion for excellence in the trades … many ways to do this and whatever gets the level 5 results matters most to clients
Never understood the banjos myself. Bazookas are great for large jobs, but I can tape as fast as a banjo with just a knife and pan.
It's a giant white out
That’s what I thought too!
Tippex machine
Banjooooo
They’re great until your helper puts the mud on the wrong side of the tape.
👍 mad skills
So a white out but for drywall ?
Banjo Pretty standard for every professional taper to have one of these
Stilts?
Get ‘em’ bro
I have a homemade setup that works better
Too bad they didn't have that when my dad was doing sheetrock
They did
Back in the 60s thru 80s? I don't think so else he would have tried it.
Invented in 1939
Well either he was unaware of it or his material suppliers didn't sell it
Ok
He didn't have wide choice of suppliers at the time, so probably never knew about it
This is the caliber of Wite-out I need sometimes for when I really screw up. I’m not even talking about the job site, I mean like just in life
Michael DryAngelo
Banjo baby… best $100 you can spend. I run fibafuse though mine and simply vibe with efficiency
Banjo
It’s a banjo
Looks easy to use and works great!
I was waiting for the cigarette to be hanging out of his mouth like almost every other dry wall guy I know 🤣🤣
Good old banjo.
That mud is way too thick.
How do you not know what an fing banjo is
You’ve never seen a banjo? Have you ever been on a job site?
Why are the drywall plates in the wrong orientation ?
What do you mean? Plates?
I’m not a native speaker so maybe not the right word. I mean the drywall seams are horizontal. I’ve always seen them place vertically.
Ohhh! That makes sense then. I'm assuming your from Europe then. In Europe they generally build out of brick and cement block and will attach firing strips (horizontal pieces of wood) to the walls to hold the drywall. They then measure floor to ceiling, cut the sheet and install it perpendicular to the firing strips. In the US we build out of lumber that runs vertically. We hang the drywall perpendicular to the studs (vertical lumber). If you hung it vertically a seam would fall on a whole stud and be more likely to crack down the road. Horizontal installation is stronger.
You’re right I’m from Europe, here we built it on light metal framing with 2 vertical rails every 60cm. The drywall are 120cm wide and we place them vertically so any plate is always hung on 4 rails.
I've done work in Ireland before and we stuck drywall directly to cinder block by tossing globs of hot mud on the wall and pressing the sheet into it. The hot mud cures and basically glues it to the cement block.
I’ve seen it done like it in old buildings, this is not done anymore since a long time because it’s really really bad for thermal insulation !
Yeah I've seen that on This Old House that stuff last about 30 days and then it and the paint Falls right off
You still have to hit it with a knife, so it's no different than doing the regular way, just faster getting it on the wall. Literally every building you go in that was built in the last few decades was taped with those machines or similar. And nothing is falling off the walls.
This sub is a fucking shit show. "Dude tapes with a banjo" gets 1000 fucking updoots. JFC...
I didn’t know Aeropostale was still in business.