Plastering a House
today we’re going to be discussing how to skim a wall and just in case your wall is not a plasterboard wall the first thing we need to do is to prepare the surface
Step 1: Surface Preparation
Just before Plastering a House, you need to prepare the surface by applying a coat of PVA watered down a ratio of 1:1 to the entire surface of the wall once applied you should allow the PVA to dry until tacky to the touch as that’s the ideal time for us to start applying our plaster to the surface of the wall. First, will take briefly through some of the things we’ll need before proceeding any further. obviously, we’ll need multi-finish, a couple of buckets for holding our clean water, and also a separate one for washing out your trowel. You can use a Flexi trowel but Eva should be fine for a beginner, hook, gauging trowel, angle tool, spatula, and splash brush.
I will explain a little bit more about the correct method of doing this. there are many people who prefer different ways of doing this but it’s not too different from what we’re discussing here but the way to get there is to keep adding plaster to the water and never water to plaster you mix in small stages and keep mixing until it’s completely free of lumps and everything looking smooth.
Step 2: Getting Ready to apply the plaster
The next step in preparation is just to give all the tools a quick wet down to prevent the plaster from sticking. Now you’re ready to start Plastering a House Whenever applying plaster you always start in the top left-hand corner of the wall and you move from left to right coming down to about halfway down the wall this is known as putting on the tops. once we reach the other end of the wall we come back to the left-hand side start from the bottom and come up to meet the plaster halfway up the wall, the only exception to this is if you’re left-handed you do it in the reverse you going from right to left. Apply the first coat approximately 2mm thickness followed by the 2nd coat just about 1mm thick (adding up to a total of 3mm).
Step 3: First Coat (applied immediately after the 1st mix)
The 1st coat plaster (2mm thick) is applied immediately after the 1st mix. Take a little bit of plaster off of the hawk with the trowel and apply straight to the wall using firm and consistent pressure to spread the plaster nicely and evenly and that’s the first coat complete. if you plaster more than one wall remember to run in the angles between the coats of plaster, wash your tools and get ready for the second coat. you’ll need to mix up again and this mix for the second coat needs to be a little bit more runny than the first and you’ll need about just half as much.
Step 4: Second Coat (30-45min after the 1st mix)
The 2nd coat should be about 1mm thick and starts about 30-45min after the first one. It’s more or less exactly the same to apply as the first coat the only difference is you want to make sure that you’re a little bit neater and take a little more care get a nice and flat because it’ll make a big difference when it comes to trowelling out. You can achieve this by just pressing the plaster right into the skin board just going right down to the line and making sure that all the little gaps and hollows are filled along that bottom edge.
Also bear in mind that as you moving the trowel, the angle of the trowel to the wall must be kept consistent as it glides over it so it gives a nice consistent shine rather than wobbling the trowel which produces a ripple effect to the wall.
Step 4: First Troweling Up (60-90min after 1st mix)
This starts about 60-90mins after the 1st mix. And so you want to scrape down those edges, just clean them off as you go. The plaster is still quite soft at this stage, starts to firm up a little bit but it’s definitely soft enough to get it off of the Kovan and the surrounding walls and the skin but now rather than letting it go hard and struggle to scrape it off later. just keep everything nice and clean as you go splash a little bit of water on the wall to keep the surface nice and lubricated and then start traveling up. Use gentle but firm pressure and a downward stroke of quite a shallow angle from the trowel to the wall, you don’t do too sharp of an angle otherwise you’ll take the plaster off and just following the same pattern as you did before starting in the top left moving right and then doing the same from the bottom left to right. you want to make sure you keep cleaning off your trowel keep wiping it clean with your brush and going back to the bucket and just washing it down.
Step 5: Second Trowelling (120min after 1st mix)
The second trowelling is almost the same as the first, as before just keep the surface greased with water just lightly mist it with it a little bit of a splash on there and then you basically just move in the water on the surface applying nice firm pressure and you can increase the angle of the trowel a little just to get a bit of a sharper edge if you damage the plaster while traveling up you just want to use a little bit of fat off the end of your trowel just to fill in the hole and nicely smooth move over it. That’s the second trowel more or less done, what is left to do is brushing those edges and the angles making sure it’s nice and smooth.
Step 6: Cross Trowel (starts 150-180min after 1st mix)
The cross troweling (starts 150-180min after the 1st mix) is basically just a Polish if flicking a bit of water on and then just really sharp angle on the trowel and just pushing it back and forth along the trowel going horizontal from top to bottom, lots of pressure on the Cross-trowel as well really press it in now with the cross trowel finished you’ve got a nice and smooth freshly skimmed wall so that’s it for today. For more construction articles check our knowledgebase section. Also, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp
