The $5 Tool That Fixed My Lumpy, Moldy Bathtub Caulk

A Anvil 4-in-1 Sliding Caulk Tool on display inside an illustrative yellow and brown frame.

For any budding DIYer, re-caulking a bathtub or sink is a rite of passage. Unfortunately, so is the sloppy, sticky cleanup after the first few botched attempts.

A few hours into a project, many novices eventually settle for a lumpy, smeared-on bead with the texture of an Impressionist painting and all the charm of a motel bathroom. And I was one of them, until I picked up a $5 caulking tool.

If you’re like me, and you caulk only once or twice a year, a silicone-tipped spreader, like the Anvil 4-in-1 Sliding Caulk Tool, will probably save you some time and trouble on your way to better-looking, better-sealed results.

I still don’t have a craftsman’s touch, but this silicone-tipped plastic stick covers up my clumsy technique, and it has bailed me out of more than a few rookie mistakes.

This tool’s silicone spreaders can bail you out of common caulking mistakes, so it’s much easier to get smooth, neat, water-tight results. And the built-in scrapers also come in handy sometimes.

Popular YouTube tutorials and Reddit how-to threads often suggest (or say plainly) that caulking tools are a silly waste of time and money and that any competent person can do the same job with a wet finger.

Maybe so, and I don’t doubt that painters and plumbers who work with this stuff every day can get great results without a spreading tool. But it never worked for me, especially when I was dealing with an extra-goopy silicone-based sealant around my sinks or showers.



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