may seem an odd question butnot so long ago when most work was sand and cement mixed in a Belle mixer and applied by hand most plasterers avoided rendering. Now you see plasterers doing rendering all over the place but the pre mixed pre bagged stuff like Weber for example.
Maybe it is the hand batching and mixing in a Belle mixer was to hard and then carrying it up a ladder in a bucket. Now I see gorrilla tubs dotted all over and whisks buzzing away. But you still habe to carry the bags and water up the scaffold?
Anyway, getting back on course. My other spread of 14 years is getting more and more annoyed at work than ever before. He has always been unreliable at best managing 4 days a week but now struggling to manage 3. No reasons, never turns up on Mondays and hasn't for the ladt 3 years. Never gives a reason. But now he is losing his temper even more and demanding more and more money. But he does not work smart, too hard.
We have just scratched on a semi 3 sides with two small extension, nice block work. I allowed us two and a labourer 3 days and did it in two and a half. Fully beaded and microgobbed and he reckons I am a slave driver? So expecting 2 spreads and a lab to microgob a front of a semi, bead up, apply a pre rend fully meshed is asking too much? He wanted a day for us to micro gob (lab did the house in 4 hours) and fully bead up (45 beads) then a day a side for the 3 of us to apply a scratch coat? AmI missing something here? I used to do a side a day just me and a lab in sand and cement with beads but no mesh but now this modern method seems to him to be harder and takes a lot longer than the old ways.
On machine days he only sprays. He loses his temper and finds it all a struggle. But mug here apparantly has it easy. I only rule, mesh, rule gain, spat and turn back to do the slumps under the sills and soffits. His spraying is crap but he thinks he is good. I have now took on an apprentice to help me on his days off and to help him spray. Now he wants more money so I have given him the sack and he can get in the real world. No day work like me, he can his own way to the job and back and it will be interesting to see if he buys any tools. He has a shopping bag and the last tool he bought was a hand board 2 years ago. No stanley knife, tape measure, margin trowels, spirit level.
Don't get me wrong he works well when he can turn up although he cannot rule off that good but there again who can? The only ones I know who can use a straight edge are plasterers who can Hardwall. Renderers seem to freehand with the attitude 'if it looks flat, then it's flat enough'.
So for those of us that did it the old way and now the new way, which is the hardest mentaly and physically?
Me? The modern way involves lots of faffing about, beading, meshing but the material is easier. Spraying is obviously faster but on day work that is irelevant and easier on the joints but you do have to go like the clappers. But so what? A 4 hour wall is done in two with a good rest in between application amd finishing. But his gripe is the 2 hours spraying non stop, he has forgot about the 4 hours slapping on by hand. But according to him this new mordern way of rendering demands more money than the old ways. He wants to go back dashing.
Ps, anyone know to to edit the heading?
