Dear all fello plasterers!
I just thought i'd share with you a wall that I skimmed that didn't finish as well as the rest of my work on the job. I'm posting this because it frustrates the hell out of me when there are imperfections in my works, its embarassing with the other trades on site that see it. I've been plastering the inside of a fancy small new build house over in east london. This particular wall is a stair wall which stretches the length a large room downstairs then up the stairs to a long hallway up on the first floor. Now the reason this wall had to be perfect apart from its size is the fact that it has a huge electronic glass skylight above it that lets natural daylight shine in down from the top of the house all the way down the stairs. I plastered the wall in two hits, about 40 sq m in total. The downstairs half was perfect and its been painted and is spot on. However as for the top half upstairs, now that its dry and has been given a splash coat I can see two horizontal lines which are almost like bulges where the join in the plasterboard shows through and there are a few trowel marks in the bottom right corner. I have a s**t hot reputation on site for the work I turn out and that I'm a perfectionist but this wall has been embarasing and I hate it. It now means that the decorator is going to have to get the electric sander on it to get it right. I was working off of one scaffold board supported by a tall ladder at one end and seated on my hop-up at the other, the top of the landing had a ladder on so that I could reach the top of the wall but had to work round the ladder legs. It was fairly dangerous and too awkard but this was all we had to make a platform. I crapped my self standing on the board and in the end it didn't turn out the best but in saying that 60% of the wall looks pukka. It makes you realise how good your plastering has to be in these situations, large areas with light shining accross them. The light shows up everything!
Does everyone else normally trowel a very tight line of plaster accross the scrim on plasterboard joins before laying on the plaster as normal? I do most of the time but didn't in this case. The reason I think that the plaster bulged a little over the horizontal joins is because the wall is breathablewall behind. The wall was battened over block work and then boarded over the top so the air circulates behind the board and breathes through any slight gaps in the joins and drys the plaster quicker along the joint setting the plaster off before its even finished. I guess the wall can be rectified but should have been right the first time
I just thought i'd share with you a wall that I skimmed that didn't finish as well as the rest of my work on the job. I'm posting this because it frustrates the hell out of me when there are imperfections in my works, its embarassing with the other trades on site that see it. I've been plastering the inside of a fancy small new build house over in east london. This particular wall is a stair wall which stretches the length a large room downstairs then up the stairs to a long hallway up on the first floor. Now the reason this wall had to be perfect apart from its size is the fact that it has a huge electronic glass skylight above it that lets natural daylight shine in down from the top of the house all the way down the stairs. I plastered the wall in two hits, about 40 sq m in total. The downstairs half was perfect and its been painted and is spot on. However as for the top half upstairs, now that its dry and has been given a splash coat I can see two horizontal lines which are almost like bulges where the join in the plasterboard shows through and there are a few trowel marks in the bottom right corner. I have a s**t hot reputation on site for the work I turn out and that I'm a perfectionist but this wall has been embarasing and I hate it. It now means that the decorator is going to have to get the electric sander on it to get it right. I was working off of one scaffold board supported by a tall ladder at one end and seated on my hop-up at the other, the top of the landing had a ladder on so that I could reach the top of the wall but had to work round the ladder legs. It was fairly dangerous and too awkard but this was all we had to make a platform. I crapped my self standing on the board and in the end it didn't turn out the best but in saying that 60% of the wall looks pukka. It makes you realise how good your plastering has to be in these situations, large areas with light shining accross them. The light shows up everything!
Does everyone else normally trowel a very tight line of plaster accross the scrim on plasterboard joins before laying on the plaster as normal? I do most of the time but didn't in this case. The reason I think that the plaster bulged a little over the horizontal joins is because the wall is breathablewall behind. The wall was battened over block work and then boarded over the top so the air circulates behind the board and breathes through any slight gaps in the joins and drys the plaster quicker along the joint setting the plaster off before its even finished. I guess the wall can be rectified but should have been right the first time