Keeping tools/buckets clean ...

You can't judge British beer on the basis of a pub the other side of the world from Britain.

There are a small number of American beers that I've liked, but many mainstream American beers are sickly-sweet to my tastebuds.


...and Stevieo makes an excellent point about rubber frankencheese.

American plastering tools are pretty much on par with European brands, though.
I'm just talking s**t about the UK, it's my responsibility as an American.

I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but the US has a deal with the Illuminati to consistently act like the world's most ignorant jackasses. It's all part of maintaining the world order.
 
There's actually a larger history to our "American cheese" than you would imagine. Also known as "government cheese", it was part of a federal program dating back to the late 1940s. The "cheese product" was developed as a method of long term storage for dairy product bought by the US government to prop up a failing dairy industry. To avoid the high cost of refrigeration, the USDA converted natural caves into cheese storage (cheese caves) that still exist to this day.


In the 1980s the US government offloaded some 300 million pounds of this low cost cheese product into the US market, which is why every school lunch program, jail, government cafeteria, and fast food restaurant had menus laden with this melty "cheese". (Coincidentally, it may have also been the start of America's obesity epidemic.)

I remember my grandmother used to always keep an innocuous brown box of "US government cheese product" in her fridge and would use it to make grilled cheese sandwiches for us. It was horribly salty and tasted nothing like cheese, but it melted like a charm.

These days I'll go for a nice French brie if I want a good melt, but I'm sure that would offend your delicate British sensibilities as well.
It's minging rotten shite and that's as far as we need to discuss it.

You can't hang beef either.

Or make tea.

Or butter.

Or beer.

Or comedy.

Or proper soldiers.

Or eggs.

Or presidents.

And you can't win wars on your own either.

Hey - you started it.
 
What did you work at before?
For the last 22 years I worked in the global fireworks industry, my last job in the business involved life on a mango orchard in rural Cambodia, where I was working with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, managing around 200 staff to resurrect an exploded fireworks factory.

That ended after we returned the factory to operational capacity and started shipping containers again. No other opportunity in the industry was as interesting as that experience, so I left. Went back to my family in Hong Kong, then we returned to the US a few months later when things started to get dicey between the local people and the CCP.

We came back to the US right before the pandemic hit and got stuck in limbo. I started working gigs delivering packages for Amazon, then found an app that lead me down the path of a handyman. I'm pretty good with my hands, so I had a lot of fun and made surprisingly good coin. First job was mowing a clients lawn, the next day I was remodeling her bathroom for $9000. The photos I posted above are from the same clients kitchen. I talked her into letting me plaster the walls so I could learn how to plaster.

We're finally moving forward with life, just closed on a nice 100 year old house near Seattle. It's all lathe and plaster, so I wanted to learn how to plaster before we moved out there after the holidays. Lots of work to be done on that house.
 

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For the last 22 years I worked in the global fireworks industry, my last job in the business involved life on a mango orchard in rural Cambodia, where I was working with the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces, managing around 200 staff to resurrect an exploded fireworks factory.

That ended after we returned the factory to operational capacity and started shipping containers again. No other opportunity in the industry was as interesting as that experience, so I left. Went back to my family in Hong Kong, then we returned to the US a few months later when things started to get dicey between the local people and the CCP.

We came back to the US right before the pandemic hit and got stuck in limbo. I started working gigs delivering packages for Amazon, then found an app that lead me down the path of a handyman. I'm pretty good with my hands, so I had a lot of fun and made surprisingly good coin. First job was mowing a clients lawn, the next day I was remodeling her bathroom for $9000. The photos I posted above are from the same clients kitchen. I talked her into letting me plaster the walls so I could learn how to plaster.

We're finally moving forward with life, just closed on a nice 100 year old house near Seattle. It's all lathe and plaster, so I wanted to learn how to plaster before we moved out there after the holidays. Lots of work to be done on that house.
Now you've torn it.

Practice on somebody's house bomb coming your way!
 
I literally started my first job a couple of days ago, using National Gypsum brand Kal-Kote basecoat plaster (lots of adhesive and sand). The finish coat will be from the same product line, but I need to get the basecoat on the ceiling today … need to get some scaffolding first, along with some retarder to see if I can extend the cure time enough to avoid having seams and wasted plaster.

I definitely need to work on my speed, but that will come with practice. Overall i'm really impressed with my first attempt and how easy it was to get the wall flat, I thought I would have a much more difficult time, looking forward to the finish plaster.
You putting a base coat on plasterboard
 
It's minging rotten shite and that's as far as we need to discuss it.

You can't hang beef either.

Or make tea.

Or butter.

Or beer.

Or comedy.

Or proper soldiers.

Or eggs.

Or presidents.

And you can't win wars on your own either.

Hey - you started it.
I will only oppose you on the issues of eggs, I make a pretty good egg.
 
Now you've torn it.

Practice on somebody's house bomb coming your way!
I take your point.

To put things in perspective, I'm the contractor coming in after her tenants ripped the walls open to steal all the copper pipe … and the contractor who stole most of appliances from the kitchen … then the other contractor who stole most of the supplies purchased for the remodel.

I'm the most trusted contractor in her phone book, she's extremely happy with my work, and she trusts me. I'm confident I can plaster those walls with a level of quality in a way that exceeds the quality of the house overall.
 
There's actually a larger history to our "American cheese" than you would imagine. Also known as "government cheese", it was part of a federal program dating back to the late 1940s. The "cheese product" was developed as a method of long term storage for dairy product bought by the US government to prop up a failing dairy industry. To avoid the high cost of refrigeration, the USDA converted natural caves into cheese storage (cheese caves) that still exist to this day.


In the 1980s the US government offloaded some 300 million pounds of this low cost cheese product into the US market, which is why every school lunch program, jail, government cafeteria, and fast food restaurant had menus laden with this melty "cheese". (Coincidentally, it may have also been the start of America's obesity epidemic.)

I remember my grandmother used to always keep an innocuous brown box of "US government cheese product" in her fridge and would use it to make grilled cheese sandwiches for us. It was horribly salty and tasted nothing like cheese, but it melted like a charm.

These days I'll go for a nice French brie if I want a good melt, but I'm sure that would offend your delicate British sensibilities as well.


That may or may not be true, but these days, I very much doubt there's ANY dairy whatsoever in what your multinational food corporations claim as 'cheese'.

How ironic that we're discussing this on a plastering forum, but, to my mind, Kraft Tool Co. USA make decent plastering tools, whereas Kraft Foods USA make bloody appalling frankencheese. The only hope for your food supply is the local farm co-operatives, who produce superb butter etc. (some of the best I've ever tasted).


Good luck with the plastering. Sounds like your client needs to sue some previous contractors, pronto.
 
It'll be about 36 hours between the base coat and the finish coat.
I take it that your emoji suggests the delay between coats will affect the adhesion between coats? I had heard of that before, but again, the instructions on the package didn't specify a recoat time.
 
That may or may not be true, but these days, I very much doubt there's ANY dairy whatsoever in what your multinational food corporations claim as 'cheese'. The only hope for your food supply is the local farm co-operatives, who produce superb butter etc. (some of the best I've ever tasted).


Good luck with the plastering. Sounds like your client needs to sue some
I don't think she's in a position to sue, nor would she get anything out of the people who came before me. I'm just trying to help out by providing a trustworthy relationship and a reasonable level of quality.
 
I take it that your emoji suggests the delay between coats will affect the adhesion between coats? I had heard of that before, but again, the instructions on the package didn't specify a recoat time.

It might depend on the chemistry of the products you are using, but yes, generally-speaking, a UK plasterer would anticipate that leaving 36hrs between coats would tend to lead to the subsequent coat having it's moisture sucked immediately out of it, by the 36hr-dried underlying layer, which could affect adhesion, pose problems for working the material to a satisfactory finish, and might also lead to it cracking/crazing.
 
I take your point.

To put things in perspective, I'm the contractor coming in after her tenants ripped the walls open to steal all the copper pipe … and the contractor who stole most of appliances from the kitchen … then the other contractor who stole most of the supplies purchased for the remodel.

I'm the most trusted contractor in her phone book, she's extremely happy with my work, and she trusts me. I'm confident I can plaster those walls with a level of quality in a way that exceeds the quality of the house overall.
I don't see how when you're asking how to clean a bucket.

What in god's name are you playing at over there?
 
No over here we dont put a base coat on plasterboard . Just finish
Like I said, the plasterboard, base coat and finish coat are all part of a product line/system by National Gypsum. I find that when learning something new in the trades, it's best to go with a pre-defined system to begin with, then grow deeper into the nuance of raw materials and custom mixes from there.
 
HA HA! I'll have to say, I thought you Brits where a more sophisticated bunch. But I guess tradesmen are men no matter where you come from. Frankly, I spent the last 6 years living in Hong Kong and had more British friends than any other nationality … frequented a pub called The Globe … really miss pub life having moved back to the US. British food, weather, and beer may be terrible … but at least you run a proper establishment.
Whaaaaaaat??! Sunday roast! Fish n chips! Shepard’s pie! Full English breakfast!

Never mind your buckets, wash your mouth out with soap!!
 
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