* Photo: Tom Schierlitz * What it is: Blue Line Automatic Taper
What it's used for: High-speed filling and taping of seams between drywall panels
If you do serious work around the house, you've probably dealt with drywall. Most DIYers tackle the seams between Sheetrock panels armed with a trowel, a roll of tape, and a bucket of gooey joint compound. Those people are suckers. Professional drywallers use automatic taping machines, known in the trade as bazookas, like this swanky $1,725 Blue Line. Holding more than half a gallon of compound in its cylinder, the device goops on the "mud" and embeds paper tape as it's rolled along the seam; a shotgun-like cocking motion cuts the tape. The main tape wheel drives a chain, which cranks a spool of 200-pound-rated steel cable to draw a plunger up the cylinder, like a giant caulking gun that never overshoots. And it's made of aluminum and stainless steel, so even caustic joint compound won't easily corrode it. With a full load of compound, the tool can fill 80 feet of seams in 10 minutes. It's not uncommon for pros to finish a 1,000-square-foot space in a single day. How much of an advantage is that? Until 2005, bazookas were banned by drywallers' unions in Australia.
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