Marshalltown.

About Marshalltown

Marshalltown Company was founded in 1890 in Marshalltown, Iowa, taking its name from the city where it was established. The company has manufactured trowels, floats and masonry tools throughout its history and has become the reference brand in the professional plastering and bricklaying trades. Marshalltown trowels are the tools that plastering instructors specify for trainees, that experienced plasterers use for decades without replacing, and that bricklayers pass on within their trade as the standard against which other brands are measured.

The difference between a professional trowel and a cheap one shows up most in the blade, in the steel specification, the tempering and the flatness tolerance. A Marshalltown plastering trowel uses high-carbon steel tempered to a hardness that lets the blade flex slightly under pressure without taking a permanent set, and it is ground flat to tolerances that mean the blade lays and finishes plaster evenly, without the low spots or ridges a warped or uneven blade leaves behind. These properties matter every day to a plasterer who applies and finishes many square metres of plasterboard and render.

Marshalltown’s range extends beyond trowels into the full set of tools needed for plastering, rendering, bricklaying, tiling, concrete finishing and drywall work, including hawks, corner tools, floats, screeds, drywall tape knives, joint compound knives and levels. With a range this broad, a plastering or finishing contractor can specify Marshalltown across an entire tool kit from a single brand.

Products We Can Supply from Marshalltown

Plastering trowels and finishing trowels. Marshalltown rectangular plastering trowels come in 11″, 13″, 14″ and 16″ blade sizes in carbon steel and stainless steel for applying and finishing gypsum plaster, render, skimming and external render systems. The DuraSoft handle is the current standard Marshalltown handle, a soft-grip over-moulded design that reduces hand fatigue over long sessions. Stainless finishing trowels handle the final passes on smooth plaster and fine render, where a carbon steel trowel’s interaction with the material would leave marks.

Brick trowels and pointing trowels. Marshalltown London pattern brick trowels come in 10″, 11″ and 12″ blade sizes for bricklaying mortar application, with Philadelphia pattern trowels for those who prefer a different working style, and pointing trowels in 4″, 5″ and 6″ sizes for joint finishing and repair work. The brick trowels use the same high-carbon steel and tempering as the plastering range, and their blade balance and flex properties are the result of refinement over 130 years of feedback from professional bricklayers.

Floats, hawks and screeds. Marshalltown sponge floats, plastic floats and wooden floats handle texture finishing of render and plaster, aluminium and plastic hawks (mortar boards) hold plaster, mortar or render at the working face, and aluminium screeds in various lengths level concrete slabs and render beds. The float determines the surface texture of the finished render, with sponge floats for fine texture, plastic floats for a smooth texture and wooden floats for rougher traditional finishes.

Drywall tools and joint knives. Marshalltown taping knives come in 6″, 8″, 10″ and 12″ widths for applying and feathering joint compound on plasterboard, alongside corner tools for finishing internal and external corners and mud pans for holding and applying joint compound. The stainless steel blade on Marshalltown drywall knives resists the corrosive effect of joint compound on carbon steel and holds its flatness for longer, which makes a real difference to the quality of taped and filled plasterboard finishes over time.

Industries

Marshalltown tools are used in plastering and rendering, bricklaying and blockwork, concrete finishing, tiling and natural stone installation, drywall and drylining, internal and external insulation systems application, and any building trade where the quality of the hand tool directly determines the quality and efficiency of the finished surface.