Painting new plaster ?

Someone will no doubt come along to say why you should water down the paint (cost?), however we found cheap undiluted white emulsion worked well to seal the wall before the final coat.

Jon

Seconded - get a tub of the really cheap crappy value emulsion and use that. You will still need two coats of the topcoat to get a perfect finish (even three if it's not top quality and you're the fussy type).

Having only tried PVA glue diluted 1:4 in water (1 part PVA, 5 parts water) and as a sealer I don't know which yould be best. We painted emultion on the PVA sealed plaster and are very happy with the results.

We also had a few patches of old plaster and a 1:2 PVA to water mix made a very good job of stabilising the patches.

Guy

-- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Guy Dawson I.T. Manager Crossflight Ltd snipped-for-privacy@crossflight.co.uk

Try it, and you'll find out the hard way ;-) Undiluted paint won't soak in to the plaster (particularly if it has a good polish on it). If it doesn't soak in, it doesn't stick. Can come off when you start applying second coat, or some time later.

If the plaster isn't very polished, then it will probably bind to the rougher surface. If the plaster is very polished, even watering down might not work completely.

Thanks for the replies.

The plaster is very smooth and shiny. What would be the best in this case ? I am not too bothered as long as I can get whatever sealer on tomorrow and the topcoat on Saturday.

The plasterer suggested giving it a very slight touch with a fine sandpaper prior to painting. Does this sound reasonable ?

Cheers

Go over it quickly with an orbital as this will get the polish off and key the plaster as well as check any lumps and blemishes.

A couple of coats of magnolia trade emulsion will seal it sufficiently for 6 months. Then do the job properly with acrylic of any colour you like. Acrylic and emulsion are not the same, BTW.

Magnolia hides the plaster best. The finish is very poor but that is what you need until it has aged a little.

My tame plasterer recommends the above method, too David

I painted a new extension with Crown Solo yesterday. One coat on to polished plaster. Perfect finish.

Looks like I will be buying a few tins of PVA in my lunch break. Any idea how long it takes to dry ?

Cheers

I like the sound of that !

Forget tins - buy it in gallon bottles from screwfix - very cheap.

As for drying time, 24hrs is plenty as long as you have reasonable ventilation.

"stuart noble"

Contract decorators working on new houses use one coat of a high opacity emulsion. The Crown brand is called Covermatt, available ready mixed in white, soft white and magnolia, and can be mixed to other colours on request. No doubt Dulux etc have similar.

Yup, that's what I use too.

As an aside - what's the difference between all the different types of PVA available for different purposes at widely different container sizes and prices; eg "universal" PVA; "bonding" PVA; "Wood glue" PVA? Certainly looks and smells the same - is it the just the same stuff in different bottles?

David

Polyvinyl acetate is polyvinyl acetate is polyvinyl acetate. The only differences are the water content and degree of polymerisation.

Mostly - you can pretty much use them interchangeably. The two variables I listed above don't make a huge difference, as long as you water it down where necessary.