Remember when we used to skim coat everything with mud from a bucket?

I was digging through my garage last weekend and found an old 5-gallon bucket of all-purpose joint compound from 2015. Man, I used to mix that stuff by hand with a paddle drill for 20 minutes every time. Now I just grab a box of pre-mixed lightweight and it's ready to go in 2 minutes. The dust difference is huge too - the new stuff barely makes a mess compared to that heavy old mix. Anyone else notice how much less sanding you need with the modern lightweight compounds?

2 comments

2 Comments

white.grant11d agoMost Upvoted

Hold on... the bucket shape changed? I never noticed that till now.

rayc8915d ago

That "mixed by hand with a paddle drill for 20 minutes" part really got me thinking. You know what nobody talks about? The actual bucket shape changed too. Old 5-gallon buckets had that narrow base and wide top so you'd always have that ring of dried mud stuck near the bottom rim no matter how much you scraped. The newer lightweight stuff comes in these tapered buckets now where the sides slope in a little and it just slides right out. Less waste, less cussing. Also weird thing I noticed - the new compounds seem to have a different smell, almost like wet cardboard instead of that sharp chemical smell the old stuff had. Makes me wonder what they changed in the formula besides just the weight.