Artex repair = polyfilla+emulsion paint?

I moved a radiator for a lady recently, twas on an artexed wall. When I took it off, the wall had been artexed behind the rad, but not behind the brackets! This left two smooth patches about 10" x 2".

I used One Strike filler applied pretty thickly. Fortunately the Artex pattern was pretty rendom, so I kind of tried to follow it. By the time I'd moved the rad the filler was pretty much dry, so I dabbed some matching paint over and you could hardly tell where it had been at all.

Yes, that would make the repair easy.

In my case the repair mix will need to be roughly the same consistency as the original artex, in order to reproduce the professional-looking swirls convincingly. They look like they were done with either a float (twist, then lift) or possibly some purpose-made rubber or sponge - covered float, using the said twist-then-lift technique. I will have to experiment.

I was mainly wonderingif the polyfilla+emulsion mix has been tried by anyone here to good effect. I'm just guessing that it would be a good imitation of genuine artex, regarding the way it behaves..

Cheers,

Harry W

================================== Polyfilla will probably dry too quite quickly for your experiment. You might consider using 'One-coat' plaster which is workable for at least 30 minutes and it will be cheaper than Polyfilla if you have to abandon the idea.

Mixing a plaster filler and paint (usually gloss / undercoat) used to be called 'Swedish putty' and was used before modern fillers became available.

Cic.

Thanks for the tip. I just happen to have some of the Wickes' variety! Usefull stuff. It doesn't seem quite as smooth as polyfilla when wet.

I vaguely remember hearing about that. I wonder if oil-based paint is better than water-based for this purpose. Whichever one ends up with the most flexibility and adhesion, long-term, would probably be best for this job.

Harry W

=================================== If you have a bit of plasterboard or hardboard lying around, try a few different mixes to see what you can achieve. Remember that nobody will notice your patching unless you make a complete pig's ear of it so you only need a close match and a lick of paint to deceive the eye.

Cic.

I did a bit of Artex patching last week actually, using Wickes-branded 'polyfilla' on its own. Looks fine. Only a very small area though. The above advice is spot-on: once it's all painted it will not be noticeable - it's a different ball game to trying to patch a smooth area where any blemish will stick out like a sore thumb.

Yes - thanks for the input. It seems my hunch about polyfilla+emulsion was spot-on. The consistency was so artex-like that I was able to reproduce the professional-looking swirls almost perfectly - and I was applying it to a smooth area, where I had already done some plastering to fill some large holes. They biggest challenge was finding the right tool to create the swirls. I ended up using a stiff-bristled hand-brush (the dustpan-&-brush variety). The repair is virtually undetectable now, even before painting. You'd need a good eye to find it. I wish I'd discovered this technique years ago when I did some rather more botched-looking repairs in another room.

Harry W

You can buy "repairtex" which is precisely for this purpose. Better still get rid of all the Artex, it's horrible stuff