M-D Building Products 20057 1/8 in. x 1/8 in. x 1/8 in. Premium Square Notch Trowel

When it comes to tiling, I fall somewhere between a DIYer and contractor. I do no more than 1 or 2 tile projects a year, so I didn't feel the need to spend $40 on a trowel built for daily-use. This is doing the job well, is pretty durable and has a comfortable handle and feel. As with any tool, if you take care of it, it will last a long time. I just past weekend 4 of a floor, shower and floor-to-ceiling large-format tile project. I clean it after each day of use and lightly mist it with WD-40 and after a month of weekend tiling there's no signs of rust. I'm sure it's a slightly lighter gauge metal than a pro version and wouldn't hold up as well if it was thrown into a truck each day but for my kind of use it's just fine. Would recommend for the DIYer.

Picked up a marshaltown U notch same size for like twice the price. They're built basically identically.

I laid 375 square feet of large format porcelain tile using this tool. I wish I had ordered two of them. I could only lay a half bag of thinset before it would begin to get a little dry, so cleaning the tool each time before mixing the second half of the bag slowed me down. If I had purchased two tools, I could have tossed the first tool in a bucket of water and used the second tool immediately on the second half of the bag and then cleaned both tools at the same time at the end of each day. I am not a professional tile layer. I am a slow amateur, but accurate and the results were as good as any professional according to those who have seen my new tile floors. Also learned it is better to throw the $3.00 plastic mixing buckets away than spend time trying to clean them after each use. One fifty pound bag of LFT thinset did 50 square feet of tile, about all I could do in one day. Younger people or someone using a helper could probably lay a lot more tile each day. I did it by myself, including back buttering the 24 by 24 tiles.

I was building a walk in shower in our master bath. I was at the stage of applying the membrane which is best using a 15/16×1516 sqaure notched trowel.I had looked all over town for a 5/16×5/16 notched trowel to no avail. Finally my wife suggested that i search amazon. It hadn't occurred to me. I retired from construction and was just used to grabbing what i needed from the local supplier or asking them to order it.I ordered the trowel from amazon and it was in my hands in two days.At first i was concerned because it arrived in a plastic mailing envelope. However i found the trowel to be straight and true. Is a good trowel for the money. You could spend more, but a lot of tile guys just toss instead of cleaning. I clean mine and found this trowel worthy to be cleaned.

Seems like a good quality trowel, for about half the price of the official Kerdi brand trowel. Used for embedding Kerdi membrane on shower walls and floor, and it worked just as an 1/8" square notch trowel is supposed to.If I did this type of work regularly, maybe the extra beefiness of the Kerdi one would be worthwhile, but for the few uses this will get, I was happy to save some $$.I have the same complaint on every trowel and drywall knife I buy: Can't they make a label that's easier to remove? Soaking in hot water helped followed up with a razor blade, as did some lighter fluid for the remaining adhesive residue when most of the label was gone.

It did take awhile to come in so order before you need it. That being said, it is great quality for a great price and I'm happy we ordered it as we attempt to update the backsplash in our kitchen. We'll definitely use this for more home projects in the future.

Exactly what I needed - I've been laying down porcelain planks (and the backerboard undearneath of it) with this thing for two weeks. It's comfortable in my hands (though I do have big hands - the grip seems rather large if someone had smaller hands). The only thing I've noticed is that the I let it dry after washing it one day because I try to keep my tools clean and the bottom of it started to rust. Also the two outermost pieces on the edge bent up slightly ,but I just bent them back into place and it's been great.

I picked this up for a flooring job calling for the tiny, square-shaped notches. The quality of this tool is superb! Plus all corners were perfectly square and the entire surface was perfectly flat! I never find this sort of thing at The Depot.