Tools & Accessories
Sanding floats, abrasive meshes in 100 to 220 grit and sanitary silicone. The small items that decide how a plastered or tiled finish looks.
Tools & Accessories: what to buy and how to use it
The short list of consumables that decide how a job looks when the lights go on.
Sanding. An abrasive sanding float with the right mesh is how a skimmed wall goes from flat to smooth. The meshes come in 100, 150, 180 and 220 grit. Starting too fine means working twice as hard for the same result, and starting too coarse leaves scratches that show through paint. Our grit progression guide sets out the order.
Mesh on a float rather than paper on a block matters more than people expect: the dust falls through instead of clogging, so the abrasive keeps cutting and you are not stopping every few minutes.
Sealing. Atlas elastic sanitary silicone goes where grout cannot: the joint between tiles and a bath, shower tray or worktop. These joints move as the bath fills and empties, which is exactly why grout cracks there and silicone does not.
If you are resealing rather than sealing new, the guide to redoing a bath or shower joint covers getting the old silicone off properly, which is most of the work.