Just stripped some paper off a wall to reveal some nice grey plaster.
I know I have to wash it down otherwise the paste will affect the paint.
Any tips on the best thing? Just water? Sugar soap?
Secondly, I guess I'm going to have to used something to seal it with.
I've seen 'paint for new plaster' in the sheds, but is this just a money maker? Emulsion thinned 10% or PVA?
A good scrubbing brush.
I've had no problems (even years later) using thinned emulsion.
just use a flat brush and fairy liquid in warm water, wet the entire wall from top to bottom and then go over it with a damp sponge, rinsing it regularly
That guess is incorrect.
just emulsion - you can thin it if you like but it makes hardly any difference
There's no need to seal plaster. The point is to stop the plaster sucking the water out of the paint, or it takes much of the pva with it and the paint falls off easily. The simplest quickest solution is a water coat, followed 5 mins later by paint.
isn't everything? Water's cheap.
NT
On Thursday 31 January 2013 18:52 The Medway Handyman wrote in uk.d-i-y:
I used a steamer and a scraper to take the worst of the bulk off.
Then followed with hot water, drop of Flash and a nice big "holey" floor choth. The holes give somewhere for the gooey paste to go.
But it is quite hard work...
Don't use the diluted PVA, as I once did following advice received - it basically gave the walls a non-stick surface from which the emulsion later peeled off :(
Don't understand that. Vinyl is an ideal surface for more vinyl IME.
On new plaster I use 50/50 water/paint mix for the first coat. On old plaster less water would be needed.
Once it's set, it doesn't necessarily mean a new layer will bond.
This became such a common mistake (apparently after it was suggested on some of the makeover programs) that some cans of paint now explicitly tell you not to do it.
In this case, you will probably find the wall paper paste has sealed the surface well enough anyway (and you can't wash it out of the surface), but I would still water down the first coat, bacause the wall paper paste may not have originally fully coated the wall, and the consequences not doing this when it was required are very difficult to fix later, when the paint starts peeling off the plaster in places.
:) Too much PVA there, you need to avoid a slick surface if PVAing, just use enough that it all sinks in.
NT
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