Plasterer Spotlight: Luke Gifford of Sharpline Plasterers

Some kids just know what they want to do with their lives right away. Luke Gifford, from the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, was one of those kids; he was absolutely committed to the craft of plastering from a very young age. At just 17 years old, he dropped out of school and picked up his first taping knife — despite objections from his mother.

“I didn't really like school, which is pretty typical of a 17-year-old boy,” Luke told us. “It was actually funny — my mom didn't want me to leave school, so I had to wait for her to go away on her honeymoon while my grandmother was looking after me to leave school. I got an apprenticeship plastering pretty much straight away. Ever since then, it's just what I've done.”

This was nearly 30 years ago, and according to Luke, going to a trade school was considered “optional” at the time. So he started by learning on the job, watching the various trades come and go, observing how they do things. And this kind of observational mindset — of always learning, growing, adapting — has continued to be a major part of Luke’s entire career.

Even today, while Luke is extremely busy running his own plastering team of five tradesmen called Sharpline Plasterers, he continues to stay curious: he keeps his eyes open for new, better ways of doing things. This, eventually, led him to go against the grain from many Australian plasterers, and start using Trim-Tex corner beads.

“You can never be shut off to thinking that you know everything because people do things different ways, and it may be better than the way that you're doing it,” says Luke. “You just need to be open-minded and look at all the products that are out there, that are available. Just try to enjoy it and learn.”

Luke & Trim-Tex: ‘I don't know why everyone isn't using it’

In Australia, where basic metal corner beads are often more dent-resistant than they are in U.S. markets, Trim-Tex is more known for specialty products, like Tear Aways and Expansions. But in recent years, more and more plasterers like Luke are starting to switch over to exclusively vinyl corner beads. For about five years now, Luke's go-to bead has been our Slimline Corner Bead, a slimmer version of an American Rigid Corner Bead — a sharp-nosed, low-profile bead that creates perfectly crisp corners.

So, why does Luke love vinyl? It’s lighter, making the boxes easier to haul on-site. It’s more resilient, making it less prone to getting damaged before it ever even makes it onto a wall. (“You can almost guarantee that somebody's going to tread on those metal external corner beads and crush them,” Luke told us. “With the Trim-Tex, the Slimline Corner Bead, you could tread on the box five times, and nothing is going to happen to the bead.”)