primer for re-painting old plaster?

I have very similar walls in my 1956-era house in the northeast US. The "2'X4' 1/2" wall board" that you mention is gypsum board, laid perpendicular to the studs (i.e. horizontal).

The insides of the walls look similar to this, although my gypsum boards are 6" (8"?) wide, not 2'. I'm not sure about the length. It's been a while since I tore any walls down, so the exact width and length of the gypsum board has been forgotten, but I'm confident that it is not 2', not even

1' wide.

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My walls measure about 3/4" thick. The metal mesh in the corners and at the ceiling junctions make certain types of repairs and/or renovations a real PITA. Patches in the open field need to be shimmed out to become flush with the rest of the wall/ceiling.

Reply to
DerbyDad03
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My house was built in 1952, the wire lathe is not just in the corners, it extends floor to ceiling, wall to wall, the plaster is not in sheets, it is all built up in several layers and hand applied. Any reno, causes massive amounts of dust, and curse words.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

Frenchman?

I'd like to learn how to do "smooth" -- folks here won't touch it; always opting for aggressive textures (to hide their sins!). Any pointers besides "practice, practice, practice" (joint taping)?

We're also debating ceiling treatment. Popcorn had to go -- nasty and dirt magnet. Not particularly fond of the various "knockdown" textures as they are common on most walls, here. Grew up with brush swirl but I'm not sure even that would fare well, here.

Might opt for something like a slapbrush as it would be a bit more forgiving without being as "noisey" as the knockdowns.

Reply to
Don Y

Ouch...I feel your pain.

I may not have been clear in my post. I have the paper covered gypsum boards on the studs (~3/8") and then hand-layered plaster over that, to the tune of another ~3/8". I actually like the slightly wavy surface of the plaster walls and ceilings.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

The pic shows the gypsum board lath with gypsum 'hardwall' squeezing between the joints. That's normal. Did you tape measure the width and length of the gyp board lath? The normal size is 2'X4'X 1/2" thick for walls, and 3/4" thick for partition firewalls between the house and garage, or in other areas where fire is a hazard. The building codes in your area may vary. The other interior plastering method is called 'THINWALL' and is mixed wet and spread on 4'X8'X1/2" GREENBOARD lath. It looks very much like regular driwall board, but the paper is green instead of grey. Fiberglass mesh 2" wide tape is either stapled to the joints, or has a impregnated glue so there is no need for staples. Some of the gyp board may be cut to size and that is why you see smaller gyp board? There is a driwall product that comes in a sac dry and you mix it with water and hawk and trowel the material over the repair areas. You can go up to 1" thick with this material, but you may get cracks after drying and have to use topping compound to fill in the cracks. Yes, the material mentioned has a 'set' time, so mix it and get it on the wall before it sets up. HTH

Reply to
Eagle

Mine is not all that wavy, while I hated tearing out parts of it for a few jobs, new kitchen,bathroom and expanding the front hall closet, at the same time it really made me admire the craftsmanship and skill that must have been required to do it.

Any slob, including me can put up drywall, but this stuff took a lot of skill to do. Even the lumber in my walls is actual rough cut 2x stock, that actually measures 2 inches.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

Is this on exterior walls or interior? Can you post a shot of what you are referring?

Reply to
Eagle

Interior, no shot, didn't take pictures when I was mid-destruction the last time, and not planning to take a wall down to show you what is behind it as then I would have to fix it, and deal with my wife. "Well honey, some guy on the internet wanted me to destroy a wall so I could take a picture for him." :-)

I assume it was the next step up after the wood lathe of old, getting the wire mesh lathe installed was probably less labour intensive than all the wooden strips.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

Lakota.

I like smoooth as well! Start with a fairly smooth wall and use a hawk and Trowel to spread the driwall topping compound on the work area. Smooth the area with the trowel, and if needed, wet the trowel face and keep smoothing the work area till you are a happy camper. :D

Scrape off the popcorn, it will be messy so cover everything with thin sheet plastic first so you can fold the mess into the sheet plastic and dump it. Use driwall topping to 'fix' any divits and holes. Use Kilz to seal the lid and spread topping smooth, or do a 'skip trowel' method of texuring. There are several types of texturing walls and lids, so consult a driwall pro, or better yet, a journeyman plasterer in your area. [What state are you in?]

Reply to
Eagle

I never put a tape to the gypsum board lath, but I have torn out a few walls.

I'm trying to think of a place where I can see the back of a wall, perhaps in the plumbing access area for the shower. The wall that I might be able to see will be the back of a bedroom wall, extending into the closet. I'll take a look when I get home. I'm just about 100% sure that the lath is not

2' wide, but we'll see.

As far as I recall, all original walls, internal and ex, are 3/4" thick.

The paper on my lath board is more brown than grey, leaning towards the brown color of paper grocery bags.

I don't think so, but I'll check tonight, if I can.

I may have a scrap of wall that I cut out and saved as a reminder. If I can find it, I'll take a picture.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

...

"Plaster lath" system...

We used it quite a lot doing reno's of the old Federal-era mansions in Lynchburg, VA, back when a young pup and were refurb'ing many of these with friends moving in just out of school. They had been converted to rooms and terribly cut up an all, but one could get a whole lot of house for almost nothing as compared to new construction if one was willing to do the necessary refurbishing. We as a group of new hires (roughly 1000 over about three years) basically did a major revitalization of a significant area in older part of Lynchburg.

There were about a half-dozen of us who made the renovation business a sideline occupation serving the purpose. I mostly concentrated on the interior architectural woodwork but these systems were used extensively as opposed to original lath and plaster as faster and cheaper but still able to match surface thicknesses and such that were extremely variable in those old houses.

They were 16" systems then as the above mentions; I never ran into anything narrower than that; I suppose there were likely local manufacturers as well with other products.

Reply to
dpb

Aw why not... lol

In your area, I don't know what the norm is for plastered interiors. Using metal mesh lath is usually done on comercial projects and screwed onto metal studs. here in Calif. Redwood lath is no longer used, only gyp board and metal mesh sheets and screws. There were a few tracts of homes built here in Temecula that use metal stud framing. I saw this going on while driving up I-15 and had to stop and check it out. After chatting with the Sup, I found out it was an experiment to see what the cost would be between wood framing and beer can stud framing. I never got a financial study, so I guess I should ask the sub contractor and builder what the cost comparison was.

Reply to
Eagle

Great! I await your return! :D

Reply to
Eagle

I bet that was very interesting doing the renos on those old buildings. :D I worked on the old court building in Downtown San Diego making it earthquake proof and rebuilding the old plaster cieling mouldings. Only a small handful of old plasterers had the knowlege and skill needed to referb the court cielings. We did "bench moulds" of the original architecture and attached them to the cielings using gypsum putty. We worked on our backs some 50 feet up!

Reply to
Eagle

I have no idea how common it was here either, of course now it is all drywall in new construction, any idiot can do that, even me. :-)

Other than this place any plaster walls I have torn into had wood behind the plaster, the metal definitely surprised a few friends when they saw it.

Reply to
FrozenNorth

...

...

That'd be kewl, too! There was some fine work of that type in some of these but I didn't work on any of 'em. Being a wood kinda' guy (having grown up in far SW KS where trees were unheard of, moving to VA and having a ready supply of all that abundant hardwood was essentially heaven! :) ) I concentrated on restoring old panel walls, fancy wide staircases with hand-turned balusters, etc., etc., ... My all time favorite was one with hand-raised panel wainscot where the panels were native pine single-plank 19" to 24" wide. Hard to imagine such a tree as what those came from these days.

I was only in Lynchburg 10 years, we started the process but it was others who remained (many good friends stayed and are retired there) got acceptance into the Historical Register in 1980, a couple years after we had made the trek to TN...

Reply to
dpb

Ah! Most of the plasterers I've known over the years were French.

Here, I don't think I have yet to encounter a home with smooth walls -- inside *or* out! (stucco) Typically a knockdown texture over drywall, then paint.

Back east, everything was smooth. I recall a friend in beantown using a VERY aggressive (knockdown) texture -- the plaster being almost an inch thick in some places (you could put "spare change" in the nooks and crannies in the wall surface!) No idea how that fared in the long run (I imagine it would be impossible to keep clean!). And, probably something you'd tire of seeing...

So, just time and patience? :< Presumably, a larger trowel makes the going quicker and results better?

Already removed the popcorn. Relatively easy on stilts. (quickly learned that goggles are helpful at keeping all that crud from getting into your eyes on its way down to the floor! :> )

Hardest part with the texture decision is deciding what we want to *see* as well as how well it hides the sins of an aging home (frontier style roof so flat ceilings rarely STAY flat!). The popcorn was really obnoxious (looking) and catches too much dirt and "dust". When it's dry, here (most of the time), there's a lot of dirt in the air that settles on all sorts of things. Smooth (or less aggressive) surfaces can be wiped clean; popcorn is just too rough!

Reply to
Don Y

On 12/30/2015 1:12 PM, dpb wrote: ...

Man, this is a nostalgia trip!!! Been almost 40 yr since we left now and I've not been back even to visit or just drive thru in over 20...but found the following for a few photo's...

Reply to
dpb

I was mistaken. The gypsum board is indeed 2' wide.

It's the subfloors and roof sheathing that are 1 x 6" T&G boards. (no plywood)

I can't put my hands on the wall cutout that I (thought I) saved.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

OK, thanks for the effort! Very few construction projects use traditional 'hardwall' construction anymore. It's usually 4'X 8' or 12' driwall 1/2 or 5/8 thick sheets installed with treated driwall nails or screws and all corners and joints covered with 2" driwall paper tape imbedded with driwall JOINT compound, and finished with driwall TOPPING compound over taped joints and nail/screw dents. Finished walls are sanded and spray-tex coated, or smooth finished with topping compound and sanded smooth for paint. I haven't seen any popcorn lids other than 30+year old popcorn that used asbestos in the mix. Asbestos in the driwall is another thread all together.

Reply to
Eagle

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