Caulk gun handle purchase changed my mind about cheap tools

I always grabbed the $6 caulk gun from the hardware bin and just dealt with the mess. Last month I rented a place near Raleigh with baseboards that looked like a 3 year old squirted them, so I finally dropped $28 on a dripless one with a thumb release. The first bead went down smooth and I didn't have to wipe a single glob off the floor. Now I'm wondering if my whole 'buy cheap first' rule is why I hated every painting project for the last 5 years. Anyone else had a basic tool upgrade that honestly shocked them?

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angelar5724d ago

That "buy cheap first" rule is exactly what I used to swear by too, until I read a construction forum post where a guy said cheap tools cost you twice, once at the register and once in your time fixing the mess. I thought he was just being dramatic, but then I swapped out my beat up caulk gun for a nicer one with a pressure release and it was night and day. The cheap ones always kept dripping even after you set them down, so every project turned into a cleanup job. Now I figure the real cost of the $6 gun was the extra hour of wiping and scraping every time I used it. Good tools just make the work feel less like a punishment, and that's worth the extra twenty bucks.