Simon Bradley
New Member
Hi
I learned the basics from a very good plasterer that did my living room. I only had one day with him so it was very basic.
I've done a lot of practice since then and my surface is pretty good now. Overall I'm starting to get that nice eggshell surface. However I do have a couple of questions as my surface is still dogged with small imperfections after quite a lot of practice!
The first problem is that i always seem to get one area where the surface is pockmarked. I have started to think this is caused by contamination of the plaster before i even start mixing. Or maybe not mixing it well enough?
The second is that I'm still getting the odd stringy bit in the surface. Sorry i cant explain it better than that. There very small and they look a little bit like the curly shavings that come out of a rasp! I think I've noticed a similar thing when I'm cleaning my tools but I'm not sure how they're appearing in my plastered surface.
I decided to post on here because I'm still guessing at why these two things are happening so hope someone can help.
There is another small issue I'd really like help with. I occasionally make the surface worse when i dry trowel the second coat. It looks like I've pulled out the top coat from an area the size of the palm of my hand. A bit like when an area of paint comes off a wall.
I'll explain how i do this currently and maybe someone can explain where I'm going wrong. When I dry trowel the second coat i only use down strokes as i seem to whip up the surface rather than smooth it otherwise. I use the trowel almost completely closed. I wet the trowel as it seems to help. I'm using a lot less pressure now than when i started. Hard to explain exactly how much. I do it very lightly is all i can say. I also leave less time between the second coat and the troweling now which also seems to help.
Any help with these things would be very much appreciated.
Cheers.
I learned the basics from a very good plasterer that did my living room. I only had one day with him so it was very basic.
I've done a lot of practice since then and my surface is pretty good now. Overall I'm starting to get that nice eggshell surface. However I do have a couple of questions as my surface is still dogged with small imperfections after quite a lot of practice!
The first problem is that i always seem to get one area where the surface is pockmarked. I have started to think this is caused by contamination of the plaster before i even start mixing. Or maybe not mixing it well enough?
The second is that I'm still getting the odd stringy bit in the surface. Sorry i cant explain it better than that. There very small and they look a little bit like the curly shavings that come out of a rasp! I think I've noticed a similar thing when I'm cleaning my tools but I'm not sure how they're appearing in my plastered surface.
I decided to post on here because I'm still guessing at why these two things are happening so hope someone can help.
There is another small issue I'd really like help with. I occasionally make the surface worse when i dry trowel the second coat. It looks like I've pulled out the top coat from an area the size of the palm of my hand. A bit like when an area of paint comes off a wall.
I'll explain how i do this currently and maybe someone can explain where I'm going wrong. When I dry trowel the second coat i only use down strokes as i seem to whip up the surface rather than smooth it otherwise. I use the trowel almost completely closed. I wet the trowel as it seems to help. I'm using a lot less pressure now than when i started. Hard to explain exactly how much. I do it very lightly is all i can say. I also leave less time between the second coat and the troweling now which also seems to help.
Any help with these things would be very much appreciated.
Cheers.