Recent content by Mike814

Buy a couple of tubs of gear, skim a room out at home including the ceiling and practice like buggery. If it messes up prime it and try again. Try not to get disheartened if its not perfect straight away. It does take practice and a course is just the beginning of an amazing, addictive...

chains saws go thru plasterboard pretty quick if you cant be arsed to stanley it!

I'm a lefty, my dad was a lefty along with his brother and two sisters. Also their dad was a lefty and my son who's nearly three is a lefty. the whole families fooked!!!!!

Just out of interest whos product do you buy?

There is a lot more to it than that. I've had a dabble myself and although i have manage to create a nice smooth "lime plaster" with my experimentation it is a far cry from something that is as good as mass produced venetian. There is a fair amount of acrylic binders in venetian plaster these...

Its all good earning a grand a week but if you've got to bust a bollock and end up doing two weeks work in terms of time and effort whats the point? When you're at the pearly white gates of heaven you'll be thinking fook me all i did in life was chuck plaster on the walls!!!!

Did someone say £1.50 per metre. Not worth getting out of bed for. Might as well go shelf stacking in tesco!!!!

I specialize in complete interior refurbishment. Including plastering, kitchens, bathrooms, tiling etc. the whole kit and kaboodle. Haven't advertised in 17 years and dont have a sign written van and never have had. It takes a while to get there but definitely listen to advice on here and become...

I'm using gear from Andy Marshall at Gold Trowel. Excellant material and also excellant technical support from Andy when questions arise. I havent yet used tadelakt other than dabbling at home although i've booked a weeks tadelakt course at Gold Trowel for October. As for what the customer wants...

The lime is basically the binder for the products whether in powder form or lime putty. The lime to the marble is what the cement is to sand in render mixes.

Modern Tadelakt is hydraulic lime with marble powder supplied in dry powder form and venetian plaster is slaked lime (lime putty) with various grades of marble flour/powder/chippings depending on the required finish. I believe the ancient tadelakt had pozzolans such as volcanic ash to aid the...

Tadelakt is rather different from Venetian marble plaster. A soap is applied to tadelakt whilst drying and compressing which then reacts with the lime and creates a solid lime soap within the plaster which in turn creates the water resistancy. Tadelakt is classed as hydroscopic as opposed to...

It is a medium grained marble and lime putty based product with a certain amount of binders and additives. It is one of the recommended finishes for use in wet areas and final coatings include 2 x Thompsons waterseal, 2 x liquid beeswax and a final topcoat of paraffin wax. By the time its...

The customer wanted a particular finish but slightly modified from the original sample board to produce slightly less movement and patterning but the job was a definite goer before creating several samples. To be honest i enjoy doing it so much i'm quite happy out in my workshop having a dabble:-)

A Venetian plaster shower room completed today. The client wanted a white finish with underlying movement. After extensive dabbling with sample boards the finish below was finalized and applied. One happy client!!