:are we talking about Plaster = sand, lime, ect or Drywall compuond? If :you are talking about real plaster why not just use drywall compound? :you can get pretty much the same visual effects as plaster if applied :correctly....the walls in my home are plaster and button board with :about 15 years of paint on top of them I wanted to recreate the plaster :look and did so with drywall compound you wold be hard pressed to tell :the difference..
It may look the same, and I'm not speaking from experience here but I've been doing a fair amount of research, but drywall compound has some significant downsides compared to plaster. You can't build it up too much on a per-coat basis, you have to let it dry between coats and you have to sand between coats and you get a lot of dust. Plaster you can work much faster and be done with everything but the cure dry phase in a matter of minutes. I think that plaster's probably a whole lot tougher, as well. Also, if you are applying directly over lath, it's either plaster or work out some kind of intermediary layer, such as wallboard cut to size - either blueboard or wallboard treated with alum or another adherence layer, such as Larsen's Plaster-Weld.
Dan
:Dan_Musicant wrote: :> I've read posts about alum, which people say you can apply to wallboard :> so that plaster will adhere. This would be in lieu of using blueboard. :> All the supplier's I've called haven't heard of alum. Where can I get :> it? Is it a powder, you mix with water? :>
:> I've also heard of Larsen's Plaster-Weld, for plaster adherence. It's :> not cheap, however. A local supplier has it: :>
:> 1 gal. $23 :> 5 gal. $105 :>
:> I have no information on it, but would guess that a gallon would cover :> 250 square feet. I'm thinking of this for plastering certain :> non-wallboard surfaces, either finish coats or two-coat. :> :> TIA for any info. :> :> Dan