Skimming plasterboard - how

I'm going to dry-line an outside wall in the bathroom. Does anybody have any instructions on how to get a reasonably smooth finish?

Reply to
Martin Bonner
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Don't ..use taper edged board and tape /joint it .

Stuart

Reply to
Stuart

Presuming you know how to mix it (properly), fix corner beads around windows and corners etc, and actually get the plaster onto the wall within 10 minutes of mixing it....

You need a largeish paintbrush, buckets and plenty of water, along with the usual plastering tools.

put the first coat of plaster all over leaving no gaps, don't worry too much at this stage what it looks like, just get it covered. Mix second mix in *clean* bucket and with *clean* mixing tools and make it about half the volume of what you used in the first coat. Apply second coat immediately (or 15 minutes after first coat was finished)...as a basic rule of thumb, if you can place fingertips onto it (not pushing) and not leave dents, it's ready for second coat. Apply very thinly, this will remove a lot of the ridges and fill in a lot of the valleys...don't be tempted to spend too long on any particular area, even this will not be an adequate finish, this comes later.

Once the second coat is on and you have cleaned off all tools etc, wet the trowel and rub the plaster upwards in long movements working from left to right, don't wet the trowel again until you feel it 'pulling', IE you sense resistence - it should glide and there should always be smoothness at this stage.

Once the wall has had one going over like this (it's called 'laying the plaster down') it can be left for a while...a final polishing after 15 - 20 mins will have a surface akin to glass, at least it is when I do it. :-p

The whole thing from start to finish can take no longer than 1 hour - ten mins for first coat, ten for second, wait 10, lay it down 10 mins, wait 10, polish 10 mins....depending on size of wall...obviously i don't work like this, I put on two walls and a ceiling, then start second coating them, then first coat two other walls, lay down the first batch, then second coat the second two walls, polish the first two, then polish the second two, then I have dinner and then do the same in the afternoon....YMMV!

BTW, it's always better to have someone helping you, as soon as the stuff is mixed, get it out of th bucket and get them to clean it, (and the mixing implements) ready for the next mix, if you do it yourself, it will have gone off by the time you've finished cleaning up...don't attempt to skimp on the cleaning up, old plaster (over 15 minutes old, whether it's in the bucket, on the trowel or on the mixing implements) will cause any newly mixed plaster to go off within a few minutes.

Reply to
Phil L

Cut the boards to fit and place them in order. There should be an half inch gap between the floor and the board. Mix the adhesive pretty stiff and daub all along the edges and dot spots all over the inside. Offer to wall and check for plumb, dips and bulges. You will have to smack them quite hard to force them flat so get a stout, longish straight edge.

Offer the next one to it and get the surface flat then offer the straight edge across both sheets to ensure they are a match. Then on with the next one. A bathroom should be dead easy as it isn't that big a room.

Why bother skimming it?

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

[snip lots more about wet plastering.]

OP wanted /dry/ lining advice.

I dry lined my downstairs extension and part of my upstairs one using dot and dab. The most important part in ensuring a flat finish is setting out the dots (or other substrate such as timber or steel battens) perfectly flat. Time spent at this stage is well spent. I used taper edged board tape, joint filler and joint finish. The latter two are completely different beasts, and much better than the combined goo (jointex?) in getting a flat surface.

Reply to
<me9

So what about the little clue "skimming" in the title?

Reply to
Roger Mills

They push flat with enough suitable persuasion. That's the point of using adhesive it is a lot quicker. Put long lines of it on joints and edges to act as a draugh excluder and to give a suitable grounding for fixtures. So plenty there for the skirting and shelving. (Nobody ever does. It's a major draw-back to second fixing.)

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

With the all the info you have some it has been left out...

A mixing paddle for the drill, lessens the task of mixing by hand. Band aid plasters for the palm of your hand just under the fingers.

Reply to
The3rd Earl Of Derby

This might help a little-

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is a full section on plastering-
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't miss the monthly competition-
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I shouldn't of mentioned the competition, as the dewalt dril has my name on it :-

-- weekendwarrior

Reply to
weekendwarrior

Not everybody sees the title. It is good netiquette to repeat the information in the title in the body of a post - I forgot.

But yup, Phil L's post was exactly what I wanted to know. (Whether it is feasible or not is a different question!).

Reply to
Martin Bonner

Thanks, but I'm going to be putting up battens and fixing the board to those. The reason for doing this is to be able to put in some insulation inside the 9" brickwork.

Because I think it will look better.

Reply to
Martin Bonner

A bit of the previous mix being in with the new mix may make a slight difference at the going off rate but its not that extreme.

Plastering is all about practise, you cant do it with a stopwatch. Different batches go off at different rates but I've never experienced plaster with 2 coats that was ready to polish after 30 minutes, unless its passed its use by date, more like 2 hours.

Reply to
marvelous

Bloke who plastered my last house mixed a bit of cement powder in with the skim to make it go off quicker - I thought he was mad!

Reply to
peter

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