Having knocked the tiles off the bathroom wall I need to repair it where the skim coat has been pulled away (biggest patch is about 1m x 0.5m). All the loose bits are off, do I seal the base plaster with dilute PVA? any pointers for the best technique for skimming? Do I use finishing plaster for the skim?
Sealing it first with PVA will do no harm.
I'd use a one coat patching plaster - at least until you've got some experience. Which hasn't helped me. ;-)
Get it about right and 'saw' any excess off between good surfaces using a straight edge - perhaps a length of suitable wood. Then let near dry, and wet the top with a spray and polish with a metal float. Any little nicks can be filled at the same time. But these instructions - roughly - are on the plaster bag. If you're intending tiling over it, the important thing is to get a good basically straight wall - minor blemishes don't matter.
Thanks. Many years ago (about 20) I bought a house where someone had sawn a hole from bed 1 to bed 3 so they could use it as a "dressing room". Even then I was fairly keen at DIY so I thought - no problem, I can build a stud in-fill, plasterboard it and then skim it. The wall was a strange thickness (2 sheets of 12mm plasterboard stuck onto a 37mm(?) core of plasterboard) so the stud wasn't quite right and the whole thing ended-up with me using a belt sander on the plaster - I didn't think it was possible to have so much dust in a room and to still be able to breath (sort of). Ever since then I've tackled just about anything EXCEPT plastering. Time for another attempt.
Not easy is it? I've just recently removed a 'room divider' that the previous house occupants put up to divide lounge from dining room. What I hadn't anticipated was that the room divider had replaced an original stud wall and the area of walls and ceiling that had been hidden by the room divider had not been made good. I therefore had a 3" wide and 1" deep 'slot' up both walls and across the ceiling. Sounds a simple job to repair but the depth of plaster on either side of the 'slot' on the walls was not to the same depth (because the plastering had been done with original stud wall in situ) and I had to cut the old plaster back quite a way to avoid a very noticeable 'slope' from one depth to the other. The major problem was the ceiling because it was stipple artexed. I put plaster-board in the 'slot', skimmed it over, and then attempted to 'invisibly repair' the artexing. Absolutely impossible! After two attempts I've got a reasonable job but it's far from invisible!!
Kev
been there :)
try that wickes one coat stuff and make the mix very, very thick.
it goes on a treat up to an inch and a half thick and if you get the mix right it's a one pass coat which requires no filling or polishing at all.
RT
Ah yes, Artexing! I'd forgotten that I wasn't any good at that either! I knocked out some built-in wardrobes a few years ago and wanted to hide the fact that they had ever been there. The only way was to remove all bumps from existing Artex then "fill" with something designed for "flatting" Artex then get "an Artexer" to re-Artex the whole lot. :-(
No need unless the plaster you're covering is dusty and friable - just damp it down before skimming so it doesn't suck all the water out of the skim coat.
Get the level right before you worry about finish (in fact if you're re- tiling you don't need to worry about finish at all). Make sure the plaster either side of the bit you're patching is smooth - knock out any lumps. Slap on the skim, trowel it so it's sticking well and roughly level, then pull a straight edge over it using the existing plaster as a guide, wiggling it from side to side as you go, to knock off the high spots and reveal the low spots. Dab a bit more plaster on the low spots, trowel and scrape again until it's quite flat. Pay particular attention to getting the new plaster absolutely flush with the old where they join - if it builds up you can cut it back by scraping the back of the trowel along the join, again using the existing plaster as a guide. When it's level clean your tools and buckets, then go have a cup of tea and a cigarette. Once the new skim has firmed up dampen it (use a plant sprayer or splash it with a brush dipped in water) and go over again with your clean trowel - it will now be much easier to polish out trowel marks and rough areas, but don't overdo it or you could end up with a surface that's too smooth to take a finish easily.
If it's only a thin coat I think finishing plaster is easier to handle, if it's a bit thicker then all-in-one is just as good and more likely to get used up somewhere else :-)
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