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nothing to be ashamed of, think it just pisses people off when they harp on about banging 500m2 in a mix etc.. fukin nobs..lol... surprised one or two off here havent been on with a snidey comment or two..lol...
 
Putting that Browning on was donkey work but looking back if board and skim was to become obsolete and hard wall is back in, then it would be the Ritmo and MP75 for me. Bugger that hand board and trowel crap!
 
I used to mix 8 bags in morning ( big bags ) and skim them in the afternoon, mixing myself, now that was graft, no electric mixes aswell... skimmers would be fuked,,,,
 
I love my big refina mm30 mixer with the 12 inch stirrer. Shakes the life out of the bucket, I don't misss the stick and plunger but would love to see labs use them these days
 
yeh, before the electric, we had the hand whisk ( bike gear ) before that a piece of timber with 2 bits of flattened skim bead nailed to the end...wtf....
 
It takes a lab the same time to mix with a whisk as I did with the plunger,God do they love mixing water with a handful of powder.
 
remember , we used to let it soak in... easy to mix then.... old bastards, i cant remember mixing with hand whisk anyway....
 
Still got my bike cog whisk and can knock up a bucket as fast as a whisk!

Came across my harvesters rake last year. Chucked that in the skip, bugger that!

Did a site (6 months work) and we had a box knocked up of 1.8m x 1m with 150mm walls in 22mm ply. Weighed a ton wet but it was the easiest way of mixing hardwall by hand.

4 buckets of water and 50kg of browning spread over the top. Just use a harvest rake and being only 100mm or so of mix there no weight to turn over. Fastest way of hand mixing Browning without getting a sweat up.

It was a Paddy labourer what built it at his own expense.

When he got sacked for knocking Mondaus he smashed it up the bugger. But we had 5 months out of it and him.
 
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remember when I first started labouring, used to mix hardwall with a bath and rake and screed with a shovel, that was only 1993.

Same when I started in 96 I remember when my gaffer took the bit of stick with the drain cover on off me after about 8 months and said ive got a present for you and promptly gave me a all in one forged aluminium podger it was like Xmas like a real step up in tool quality ! If it wasn't spotless I got a bollokin eventually when I went on my own and got my bro with me labouring to me I had a drill and bought a podger just incase one day there was no power on site so I got podger off instantly he says you can **** off if you think I'm knocking up with that! I've still got it in shed a lovely black one never been used but when I see it I think thank **** I don't have to use that anymore!!
 
I had a job in 82 and I had a brickies lab with me who only had mixed with a mixer.

He knew I owned a Belle mixer and we arrived on a small rendering job just one good mix. I told him to go to the van and get the mixer out. he came back and said I had forgot to put in in the van as it was not there. I insisted he was wrong and that he looked again.

He insisted it was not not there so I went back to the van, opened the back doors, got the shovel out and said "here it is".

He told me to Fook off and walked!

He did come back but I had to mix it myself.
 
Still waiting for a video of one of you old schoolers who reckon you can mix up just as quick with a podger. Not questioning it just interested to see.
 
Still waiting for a video of one of you old schoolers who reckon you can mix up just as quick with a podger. Not questioning it just interested to see.
It would probably kill me now, used to mix a bag in under two mins,labs with whisk take upto 8mins now,
 
the skimmers are right its easy foook rendering screeding to musch hard work now im 39 and fuckeed already if i could skim everyday id be a happy chappy
 
after reading this thread reminds me of a time in the 60s when a chap came and told a plastering contractor that he was a mirite plasterer! [an old finish for plasterboard] nolan laughed his head off and told the chap that he would be on the shovel !
plasterers labourer was hard work mixing corse stuff by hand was very hard as the sand was 50/50. mixing screed by hand they could mix quick as sharp sand turns over and mixes better.
when we screeded the tower blocks we would set several labourers up each on his own heap of sand and cement. a couple of chaps on wheelbarrows another running the hoist. at the end of the day nolan would say just lay a few more yards to pay the donkeys wages.
 
after reading this thread reminds me of a time in the 60s when a chap came and told a plastering contractor that he was a mirite plasterer! [an old finish for plasterboard] nolan laughed his head off and told the chap that he would be on the shovel !
plasterers labourer was hard work mixing corse stuff by hand was very hard as the sand was 50/50. mixing screed by hand they could mix quick as sharp sand turns over and mixes better.
when we screeded the tower blocks we would set several labourers up each on his own heap of sand and cement. a couple of chaps on wheelbarrows another running the hoist. at the end of the day nolan would say just lay a few more yards to pay the donkeys wages.
No sympathy those days,do it or fuk off
 
Malcs maybe the man to answer this but am I correct in thinking that power floats (helicopters) were on the go in the 60s?
 
When I was an apprentice we had a 64 year old labourer who would mix enough sand and cement for the side of a house in one go and without getting out of breath. His way of mixing on two 8x4 boards was simple and he would mix the lot faster than a Belle mixer could today. Floor screed was simple being dry. He damped the sand first.

If it is the only way as whisks had not been invented and a Belle mixer was very expensive to buy. Nobody knew better and you just got on with it.

labourers and spreads was skinny. 32 waist was fat!
 
Malcs maybe the man to answer this but am I correct in thinking that power floats (helicopters) were on the go in the 60s?

they may have been but powered tools where very rare and expensive they would have only been used on huge areas.
concrete was mixed on site in pan mill mixers dumpers would deliver the load, plasterers where often called out to trowel the concrete up we later lost this job to a person called a concrete finisher. there was always good money to be earned in concrete.
 
When I was an apprentice we had a 64 year old labourer who would mix enough sand and cement for the side of a house in one go and without getting out of breath. His way of mixing on two 8x4 boards was simple and he would mix the lot faster than a Belle mixer could today. Floor screed was simple being dry. He damped the sand first.

If it is the only way as whisks had not been invented and a Belle mixer was very expensive to buy. Nobody knew better and you just got on with it.

labourers and spreads was skinny. 32 waist was fat!

they did knock up on a banker boards.
we had a cement mixer a cast iron thing that needed about 4 men to move it, it was water cooled with an rad that was open at the top, it bubbled away and the labourer just keep topping it up during the day. the men would put an egg in the rad. so that it was hard boiled for break time. some off the men did not have a flask and would bring a drink of cold tea in a pint milk bottle with a top on the bottle.
theer was a mess hut for craftsmen and apprentices and another for labourers they did not mix at meal times. i was told that craftsmen talked about the contract during meal times when the labourers where trying to shag each other!
 
Thanks Malc , I for one never complained when the professional floor screeders appeared and took away a big part of the trade. Always felt you knew you had done a days work if you were on floors..
 
Thanks Malc , I for one never complained when the professional floor screeders appeared and took away a big part of the trade. Always felt you knew you had done a days work if you were on floors..


you need to have a good run on screeding, then you can earn your money quickly. you run the trowel over the screed and it is finished no going back over your work. a lot of plasterers do not like screeding. you do need to protect your legs against cement burn.
 
A retired plastering and screeding friend of mine is building a 4 bed house , roof in on , 1st coat render is on , he was saying that 5 different plasterers have called in to ask if they can price the skimming , now "no" other trade has called in asking him for work , and the plasterers all didnt want to price for the screed or did they mention the render , why do you think that is also why only plasterers ??

Any self-respecting plasterer would know that if there was already a scratch-coat on that the job was already taken, but then again, any self-respecting plasterer wouldn't go knocking on spec either :RpS_thumbup:
 
Thanks for all the posts , im happy that there are more than just me out that know the score .
 
Skimmers are everywhere, it's dog eat dog, no skill to it if you can piss you can skim.
 
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