February 15, 2001

New drywalling tool gets the mud pumpin'

For every tedious, time-consuming job, there is always someone saying "there's got to be a better way." Finishing drywall is no exception.

Photo courtesy of Renegade Tool Using a MudBuggy system, one worker can do the job of three.

Renegade Tool of Parsons, Kan., has developed the MudBuggy, a tool used to make finishing drywall faster. It's a mixing, pumping unit that automates the process almost up to the point of application.

"It's kind of a complementary tool to what they have right now," says Renegade President Danny Dillinger. "In some ways it makes the job quite a bit easier."

The idea for the MudBuggy came from Ed O'Mara, a 30-year drywalling veteran who tried to develop his own automated machine to mix and apply mud. With several modifications and the help of Dillinger, the machine became reality.

David Price, vice president of sales and marketing for Renegade, says this is the tool every drywall finisher has wished for. "Everybody in this industry has thought of this," Price says.

The MudBuggy speeds up the drywalling process by eliminating the need to mix materials and refill tools. A mixer keeps the compound in uniform consistency, while the pump delivers the material to the tools through a small hose line up to 100 feet long. "This machine will continuously pump material out to the user," Price says.

The MudBuggy comes in three different models, each operating from 120-volt, 20-amp outlets. The standard model has a tank mixing capacity of 20 gallons of material, or four boxes of premixed compound, and can deliver up to 1.5 gallons per minute. The deluxe model has the same capacity, but it also features a pressure sprayer and wash-up tank to clean tools. There is also a 30-gallon-capacity dual-pump model which allows two operators to work at the same time.

Renegade has taken about five years to bring the MudBuggy to market. "We wanted this to be far better than anything else," Price says. "We're taking the time and getting it right."

The company plans to sell the product to the public in the next few months.

Dillinger says the MudBuggy has gone through several field tests. "There's been a lot of changes over the last five years," he says. "The product has evolved quite a bit."

One of the features they added after field testing the product was a metering system to control the flow of the compound to the tools. Price says one of the complaints they had during the initial testing of the product was the speed of the machine. "The machine was controlling them," he says. Now, a sensor in the pump will react to the speed of the tool on the wall. "It far exceeds anything that is out there now."

Through testing the product, the company also found that drywall finishers wanted to be able to adapt their own tools to the machine. "There is no learning curve," Dillinger says. Adapting the drywall finishers' own tools gives them the same quality and feel they're used to. "The quality is the same because we are attaching the tools that they already know how to use."

Renegade also sells tools to go with the machines, such as a handle that allows the operator to control the on/off function and volume of mud at the tool itself. Other tools include the flat and corner automatic taping tools, which allow for single-pass application; a flat knife with a constant flow of mud; and the bottomless pan for use with traditional tools.

"Drywalling has traditionally been the bottleneck," Price says. The job can take three people to do the taping, mud application and the wipe down. "We can certainly eliminate two of these guys... We're going to save people and money."

"One of the hardest jobs out there is taping," Dillinger says. "This reduces a lot of that work."

The MudBuggy also has a spray feature that allows for work with paint and texturing products. "We call it an interior finishing system," Price says. "We can finish it out with one unit."

Prices for the MudBuggy range from $8,500 to $14,500, depending the model and tools. More information is available at the company's Web site, www.renegadetool.com.

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• Tacoma company a whiz at helping homebuilders, 01-25-2001
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• Patching potholes becomes EZ, 01-11-2001
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