Midwest Rake Flexible Blade Smoother On the market for about a year now, the Flexible Blade Smoother has earned a slightly flashier nickname. According to its manufacturer, Midwest Rake Co. LLC, concrete contractors have taken to calling it the "long-handled supertrowel."

Designed to work with cementitious and viscous materials, the smoother is a steel blade with round corners, angled to maximize surface impact and attached to an aluminum handle. At widths of 24 inches and 36 inches, the tool is longer than a hand trowel and attacks thick toppings with more force than does a smoother with a nylon blade. In action, a large portion of the blade rides on the surface horizontally.

The smoother can also be used to spread, if the coating is viscous enough. “If you angle the blade downward you really have a tool that can move material,” says Midwest Rake co-owner Jeff Plank. “It’s almost a long-handed trowel. But it’s larger than a trowel, so it saves time.”

The idea for the Flexible Blade Smoother came to the Warsaw, Ind., company as a request from its customers, “as most of our tool ideas do,” Plank says.

For more information, call (800) 815-7253 or visit the Midwest Rake Web site.