Matching orange peel texture

[Carlos]

I just patched a wall where it used to be a wall gas heater and now I have encountered the challenging task of matching the texture, I believe that the texture is orange peel just by the looks that I have seen in the internet. I bought some kit ( a plastic sprayer) and I used some already made texture compound (both spray and compound are Homax), I put it to the appropiate setting for orange peel, but it just doesn't look right. The resulting texture produce drops of compound that are round and raised, while the existing texture looks flat (my assumption is that when they used the texture machine the forced to which the drops of compound where launched is way stronger that what I can achieve with the plastic spray, and therefore the drops when the hit the wall gets flat) . Any ideas on how I could accomplish that round flat drop other than renting the machine just for that 27x62 wall patch? I will appreciate your input

Carlos

[Tim Mulvey]

Carlos, it sounds like you have knockdown texture. Spray the wall with almost the same size spatters ( drops ), wait till it starts getting a little firmer (10 to 20 minutes), then lightly knockdown the bumps with the widest drywall knife you have.

Tim

[Robert Allison]

Thin the mixture a little at a time until you get the size that you want. Applying more pressure on the sprayer pump will also reduce the size. That premixed stuff is just thinned drywall mud, so if you run out, just get some mud as it is much cheaper. Don't forget that the sprayer also has a size adjustment on the nozzle. Set that to the smallest size.

[Chuck B.]

I think you are referring to what's called Knock-down texture. After you spray the mixture on the wall, you need a large putty knife or something similar to lightly flatten the bumps. I've done this many times in my house and it works well.