essexandy
The Lake Governor
Well today my son and I went down to Erith to have a play with a Ritmo Powercoat and the BG Spray Finish.
Now I should say to start with that my son has absolutely no experience of the trade at all, and that I had asked Joe BGs demonstrator if he could just give us a quick demo of the spraying and then let us just get on and have a crack at a room on our own. So to start with Joe sprayed a wall while we just watched and asked questions, then he handed my son the "spray gun" (is that right) and away he went. Within about five minutes tops he had sprayed the opposite wall (7.2m2) with not to many overly thick or thin areas but not perfect.
The process is totally different from finishing hand applied multi.
Once the wall is sprayed it has a texture resembling Tyrolean, this is then left for five to ten minutes before it is flattened in. Joe had used one of the s*p*r*lex spats on his wall but I used a 20in trowel, at this stage you really don't need to be to fussy about getting lines and whatnot out. Now get this, you now leave the wall for 40 minutes before it will take another trowel and even then it's not overly firm. I used my bog standard 11in Marshalltown to put a trowel over the wall and couldn't believe just how forgiving it is and how workable it was after all this time on the wall. Anyway it got left for a bit longer while we sorted out the little room we were going to tackle, putting up beads and scrimming the joints before I put another trowel over it. At this stage I was pretty happy with the wall and knew that another quick trowel would see it finished.
Now we got going on the room.
My son started by spraying down the three beads and scrim to build out the thickness a little. We gave it a few minutes before I flattened down the scrim and beads and my son started spraying. Having only done the one wall before he had already got more idea now and got the room on quickly and more evenly than before.
Again once on it was left, this time for about 15 minutes before I flattened it down. This time I deliberately took even less care with the flattening in to see just what I could get away with.
As mentioned earlier you are supposed to leave it for 40 minutes but we went and had lunch and I didn't get back to the walls for an hour. Now just imagine what Multi would be like after that:RpS_scared: but not this gear it just seemed to come back workable as the trowel glanced over it, ok perhaps not quite as easy as that but no major issues. Now because I hadn't flattened in very well it did pimple quite badly which is what I wanted as you only really know how good a material is when you find out what you can do with it when things aren't going at their best.
Anyway I went through the due process of leaving it a fair while between trowels and sure enough after three trowels, using a carbon steel for the last the pimples were out to my satisfaction and the walls looked pretty good.
So what did we learn today?
Well I reckon anyone could learn to spray this gear using the Ritmo in no time at all.
Any thickness needs to filled out a little ahead of the main spraying, I would probably mix a little bit of gear up stiffer by hand and fill out with a hawk and trowel.
You don't need to be overly fussy with flattening down.
This Spray Finish is very very forgiving and workable over a much longer period than other finish plasters I've used apart from the original Siraphite and is very fine just like the old Carlite Finish for those that remember that.
Now this is going to be obvious to the machine boys, because the Ritmo is only mixing the plaster just before you spray it on the wall it is like doing a rolling set with constantly fresh gear and because of this and the length of time between the start of a hit and getting it finished I reckon you'd need to do really big hits to make it work for you.
Spray Finish can be hand applied and I would think it could be really handy when doing a big big ceiling.
And lastly I still think that although the spat may be the best tool for the initial flattening you get a better finish using a trowel.
P.S. thanks to Joe who was a pleasure to be with even though he knew I didn't like his technique with the spat and had said so. I'd definitely recommend anyone to get down there for a go if you're genuinely interested in Spray Finish.
Now I should say to start with that my son has absolutely no experience of the trade at all, and that I had asked Joe BGs demonstrator if he could just give us a quick demo of the spraying and then let us just get on and have a crack at a room on our own. So to start with Joe sprayed a wall while we just watched and asked questions, then he handed my son the "spray gun" (is that right) and away he went. Within about five minutes tops he had sprayed the opposite wall (7.2m2) with not to many overly thick or thin areas but not perfect.
The process is totally different from finishing hand applied multi.
Once the wall is sprayed it has a texture resembling Tyrolean, this is then left for five to ten minutes before it is flattened in. Joe had used one of the s*p*r*lex spats on his wall but I used a 20in trowel, at this stage you really don't need to be to fussy about getting lines and whatnot out. Now get this, you now leave the wall for 40 minutes before it will take another trowel and even then it's not overly firm. I used my bog standard 11in Marshalltown to put a trowel over the wall and couldn't believe just how forgiving it is and how workable it was after all this time on the wall. Anyway it got left for a bit longer while we sorted out the little room we were going to tackle, putting up beads and scrimming the joints before I put another trowel over it. At this stage I was pretty happy with the wall and knew that another quick trowel would see it finished.
Now we got going on the room.
My son started by spraying down the three beads and scrim to build out the thickness a little. We gave it a few minutes before I flattened down the scrim and beads and my son started spraying. Having only done the one wall before he had already got more idea now and got the room on quickly and more evenly than before.
Again once on it was left, this time for about 15 minutes before I flattened it down. This time I deliberately took even less care with the flattening in to see just what I could get away with.
As mentioned earlier you are supposed to leave it for 40 minutes but we went and had lunch and I didn't get back to the walls for an hour. Now just imagine what Multi would be like after that:RpS_scared: but not this gear it just seemed to come back workable as the trowel glanced over it, ok perhaps not quite as easy as that but no major issues. Now because I hadn't flattened in very well it did pimple quite badly which is what I wanted as you only really know how good a material is when you find out what you can do with it when things aren't going at their best.
Anyway I went through the due process of leaving it a fair while between trowels and sure enough after three trowels, using a carbon steel for the last the pimples were out to my satisfaction and the walls looked pretty good.
So what did we learn today?
Well I reckon anyone could learn to spray this gear using the Ritmo in no time at all.
Any thickness needs to filled out a little ahead of the main spraying, I would probably mix a little bit of gear up stiffer by hand and fill out with a hawk and trowel.
You don't need to be overly fussy with flattening down.
This Spray Finish is very very forgiving and workable over a much longer period than other finish plasters I've used apart from the original Siraphite and is very fine just like the old Carlite Finish for those that remember that.
Now this is going to be obvious to the machine boys, because the Ritmo is only mixing the plaster just before you spray it on the wall it is like doing a rolling set with constantly fresh gear and because of this and the length of time between the start of a hit and getting it finished I reckon you'd need to do really big hits to make it work for you.
Spray Finish can be hand applied and I would think it could be really handy when doing a big big ceiling.
And lastly I still think that although the spat may be the best tool for the initial flattening you get a better finish using a trowel.
P.S. thanks to Joe who was a pleasure to be with even though he knew I didn't like his technique with the spat and had said so. I'd definitely recommend anyone to get down there for a go if you're genuinely interested in Spray Finish.
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