Tinker,
Much of what I've learned is from other pros (like you). When I bought some drywall tools several months ago, I looked a some corner flushers that they had on the shelves. I thought, "WOW, those things are expensive!" and then never gave it second thought. Having used them, now I understand.
As much as I would like to have a dustless sander, I've pretty much given up on the idea. Having tried multiple sanders, now I understand why some of the pros like the Radius 360. Some of the new things have worked for me; some have not.
These are my flushers. This is newer technology that has worked well:
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The pic below shows my knives. I suspect that most of these were around when you were taping a lot. The 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 14" knives have worked out well. I do a lot of work with the orange handle and black handle 8" knives. The little 3/4" knife (first row, third from right) is the best tool I've found for mixing hot mud. The little slanty knife (first row, fifth from right) is very useful for touching up corners and tight spots. The funky looking blue handled knife in the back row (says something like "Pro ...") is pretty much useless. As are the corner knives in the back row. The only knives that I haven't used yet are the funky looking red bladed knives on the left(new technology); they are for skim coating. We'll see how they work out.
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Regarding making it work, you're right. The vast majority comes from the hand connected to the knife handle and not the knife itself. What technique I've got came from lots of readling, lots of asking questions, and lots of practice. And lots of fixing what I screwed up (which tends to teach you real fast). For example, when I finished one wall in the garage, I found that some of the tape had been wrinkled due to the house settling. For part of it it, I spent a lot of time trying to get it "touched up". After much work, it looked fair (not good). A couple days later after moving some shelves, I noticed that a vertical corner was pretty bad too. I said "@#$#@ it!" and ripped out the old tape, cleaned out the corner and retaped. 20 minutes later, I had a nicely taped corner. (Plus another 10 minutes the next day with a finishing coat.) Just another tough lesson. I'm still pretty slow, but I've learned enough to get good results.
Regards,
Dan.
