gouged-out wall

How old is the house, and where is it located?

And what does the texture seem like where you tried drilling?

My guess is it's lathe and plaster, but other possibilities exist...

--

Post a picture someplace. Could be plaster, could be brick or block behind it. Could be a lot of things. When was the house built?

Concrete ?

Nobody can hammer a nail into a lathe. After all, most of them are made of cast iron. OTOH, he may have plaster over lath, which could be rock lath, metal lath or wood lath strips.

Joe

This is from an old thread. I'm using Google Groups (alas) which was acting up, so I couldn't see (at that time) that my post even went through to Usenet. I assumed it didn't until I just came across it now and read the responses. Here's my followup.

Me, back in September:

JoeSpareBedroom:

dpb:

Sandy. More precisely, like a rock that's been pulverized. Perhaps like concrete or cement that's been pulverized, but I don't know enough about them.

People have answered what they think it may be -- and thanks -- but any idea how I can get into it?

Michael Hamm