My first thought was to blame the tools too. I spent $85 on a fancy 14 inch trowel thinking it would fix my finish, but my hawk was a crooked $12 one from the clearance bin. Looking back, the tool was fine, my hand just kept wobbling because the hawk plate was bent and I never noticed. I still laugh about it now, because the new trowel did nothing except look shiny in my bucket. It took me three more jobs to finally flip the hawk over and see the bend.