Plaster Repair How To

Still Focused on Attic Ladder Edges

2011-04-03T20:26:00.000-07:00

The beveled edge into this attic ladder opening is perfectly formed all-around, by buttered-on flexible grout. Randomness matches the surrounding brocade texture.

Square-cut the drywall opening to the outside of the ladder frame, very carefully, and the job is easy.

Wanting an invisible stowed ladder.

Another Job Follow-Up, After Two Years

2010-09-06T07:22:00.000-07:00

Please refer here to, mainly, a Picasa Web Album.

Heavy wallpaper can make for tolerance of badly-cracked plaster walls. Fixing the walls is a very large commitment. Here is initial revelation of a wall, using a steamer. Wallpaper removal must be complete.

Please read on, at the album.

Patching a Failed Ceiling Drywall Seam

2010-09-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Drywall butt joints CAN be made to survive, without taping. Here is repair of a failed not-taped butt joint, in a house built in 1951. An uninterrupted crack ran the 24' length of a living room ceiling. One or several mud repairs, made matters worse.

1/31/2009, 10:59 AM. A failed patch of buttered-on setting mud was very tenacious. The 24-foot room length was a very good workout, with the whole body in controlled tension atop a ladder. I regret not having a picture of the further crack prep, slicing out a full-depth 3/32” vee. All scraping and cutting prep is with a 3” flexible straight-blade putty knife. Such blades are self-sharpening by the scraping process.

10:59 AM. Scraping reveals tear of the drywall tape along a butt seam perpendicular to the ceiling 2x6 framing. I think the pink is PlasterWeld, very ineffectively brushed into the butt joint. The joint is of rough ends (not tape edges), of drywall, with no covering tape.

11:00 AM. Scraping in process. This was two thirds of the job.

4:36 PM. The completed patch, filled with flexible grout.

2/1/2009, 3:04 PM. Spray texture completed. Some further fussing will be done with a damp sponge. This is not a true view of texturing through the box aperture, with box set on ladder a couple of feet from the ceiling. The box about 18” wide is generally twice the width of the stripe.

3:06 PM. The box and texture stripe, further back. The entertainment cabinet was draped. Spray did land with frequency on the tarps directly below, and a dozen dots were wiped from the floor farther out.

3:07 PM. Detail of the applied orangepeel texture is evident while it is wet. The spraying is very random, hard to control, much driven by waving the can upward. Blobs are adjusted by dabbing with a damp sponge. The dabbing is about half of the hour-long texture application.

3:08 PM. Tools of the repair. The groove was filled and surfaces blended smooth using 1/2 pound of flexible grout from the tub, with liberal spray of water. About half of the can of orangepeel texture was expended.

2/1/2009, 3:33 PM. Texture wider view without flash.

I guarantee my work indefinitely, and am never called with complaints. I asked for feedback, for reassurance of an interested home owner in Omaha, at September, 2010. This customer, and the others, responded with compliments and kindness.

Please know I am eager for faster progress in sharing this product with the world. My scale remains tiny, with batches of a pound or two, lasting me for weeks. From tubs, without de-aeration, product remains workable for weeks, and I dispose of very little. I imagine best packaging will be with evacuated fill of caulk tubes. I will invest in larger scale, as demanded.

Attic Ladder Edges, Always

2010-08-13T05:04:00.000-07:00

Flexible Grout is useful in every one of my attic ladder installations. With variable condition of door face and ladder frame face, vs. ceiling plane, I never find advantage in use of edge molding.

An Annular Patch, of Structolite and Flexible Grout

2010-03-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

From the attic, I had seen a lot of light through a collar-hidden annulus of the wood stove flue ceiling penetration. Maximum gaps are about 5/8", and the ceiling drywall is fractured above face paper. I can't close the gap with flexible grout alone, over more than half the circumference. With this prep, the plaster securely bonds to the ceiling-set ring, and to drywall edges. Plasterweld would have almost no value here.

New Methods in a Typical Attic Ladder Patch

2009-11-29T16:11:00.000-08:00

When I install an attic ladder in a lath & plaster ceiling, I have an added patching job if I have replaced a larger ladder. In this case of a new ladder installation, there might have been little or no patching. However, the ceiling was cracked and detached from wood lath near a decommissioned chimney. I liberally pulled off loose plaster to allow reset of wood lath, adding new wire lath where possible.

The wire lath is strongly attached with screws. All edges are fully bonded with flexible grout, applied to surfaces very wet from water spray. As in small-crack repair, the grout flows best with local dilution. Plaster can not flow into thirsty edges. Edge preparation with Plaster-Weld adds no mechanical strength or restraint of wire-lath ends.

Here, all wood lath and broad original plaster surfaces are coated with Plaster-Weld bonding agent, applied by brush.

The patch of Structo-Lite Basecoat Plaster is applied in two steps. Here a good match of surrounding texture was achieved by simple striking with a 4-ft Feather Edge. Dark detail in the patch is spot application of flexible grout to correct under-fill or to add texture.

Please note the ladder appearance, blending with the ceiling, never using trim molding. All ladder frame edges are bonded-in with flexible grout, fairing in a very uneven plaster surface. With best fit of the ladder frame, level, the ladder frame is about 1/8" proud of plaster along the hinge end, and about 3/16" recessed from plaster at the center of the near long edge. Molding is needed by anyone else, lacking flexible grout. Molding can never be relied-upon to seal clearances between the ladder frame and the ladder rough opening.

The ladder is a rugged and simple Calvert Model 1026. My trademark safety pole with hand grips is visible through the opening.

Fixing a Cracked Plaster Corner with Metal Edge and Flexible Grout

2008-08-28T21:04:00.000-07:00

Defects at this corner in a high-traffic hallway were particularly daunting to the homeowner, leading to a call for help after attempted painting prep with removal of kitchen wallpaper. Enamel finish is poorly bonded. A horizontal crack is bulged out. A vertical crack 1 1/2" from the corner is unstable. Old repairs with paper tape and mud have come undone.

Here the corner is ready for grouting. No cracks are large enough to permit repair with plaster. If the only tools in the box were brittle setting mud and Fix-It-All, one would choose Fix-It-All. "Durabond" is sometimes recommended, but that is just a brand name for setting mud. A flexible and adhesive patch material will survive corner impact: my flexible grout.

All filling was done in about three troweled applications of flexible grout. The final result met the goals of prep: nothing to be seen, and confidence in durability.

The adjacent enamel paint edges are sandably stabilized by the flexible grout. The enamel adhesion is poor, but I had to stop peeling somewhere. This will hold. Where adjacent paint is latex and also not well bonded, the flexible grout is even more useful. Water in mud tends to aggravate the paint release; not so flexible grout with its acrylic base.

Grout at a Ceiling Edge

2008-08-23T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is a common situation with plaster crack repair. A 1/4" drywall covering of ruined ceiling plaster was dressed at edges with paper tape. The walls were good enough, where several layers of wallpaper concealed cracks. Several more layers of wallpaper were applied through the years after the ceiling improvement. Now, I have the job of fixing the cracked plaster walls. The tape up onto the ceiling is simply razored into the corner, to retain texture.

Mud would NOT last here. Retaping the corner would be painful, with spread of texture damage on the ceiling from troweling and wetness. Fix-All might survive if pushed into the gap, but application would be aggravating, with short pot life, and with difficulties of cleanup.

I wet the gap by spray bottle as I progress, and push flexible grout into the gaps, by fingertips. The application will be easier yet, dispensing grout with caulking tubes. Going around again if necessary, I can spot-apply a matching texture pattern with flexible grout.

More photos of completed crack-repair prep

2008-07-16T05:25:00.000-07:00

Simple closure of a crack using flexible grout is quickest, but general instability in a wall may be more-permanently cured with willingness to set in fresh plaster. Here is the opposing stairwell wall, ready for smoothing with setting mud.

Here is the prep of a bathroom ceiling, a first application of flexible grout, and two coats of basecoat plaster. The next step is near-leveling of all repairs using flexible grout. Finish with careful buildup of setting mud.

Flexible Grout and New Plaster in a Stairwell

2008-07-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

This wall of a stairwell had cracks covered with fiberglass mesh tape and mud. The cracks had fully broken through the tape in just a few years, and gaps were large in areas of extensive weakness. Here, the mud and tape have been sliced off, and plaster has been liberally removed where weak. An island of new plaster solidly bonded to lath does much to stabilize the entire wall.

I do most prep work with a 3" flexible-blade putty knife, with the grip and force that can be comfortably maintained with one hand. I cut mud with slicing action. The blade is self-sharpening, and develops beneficial rounded corners. To do crack repairs with flexible grout, slice all the way to the lath, veeing one or both sides to an opening of about 1/8"

I bond plaster along the veed-out cracks, with my flexible grout. Working from bottom up, I progressively flood the gap using a spray bottle, and trowel in flexible grout at paste consistency. The water in the

crack dissolves the paste, and under pressure of the trowel, the gap is completely filled. At this wet consistency, the grout measurably shrinks upon drying, and repeat application is needed to fill flush. Further application of grout is best done after plaster fill at the exposed lath.

Cured flexible grout along the groove of a plastic container lid tolerates severe bending. I have not found any other simple-to-use patch material that passes this test of adhesion and flexibility.

My plastering kit consists of this plastic utility tub, basecoat plaster in two-pound peanut butter jars, an 8-inch magnesium plastering hawk, a 5 1/2" pointing trowel, a 48" magnesium featheredge, water in a bucket and in a spray bottle, and a sturdy mixing stick.

This quantity of plaster is just sufficient for a first base coat over all open lath on this wall. I tilt the tub, and add water by pouring, to start.

I squeeze water from the sponge to get desired peanut butter consistency.

A first coat deliberately under-fills, leaving good bonding opportunities for a second coat. While still wet, excess is sliced off (not scraped) using multiple strokes of the featheredge. Keep the featheredge clean and wet

I rarely use Finish Plaster. A second Basecoat application worked here. The surface is still very slightly under-filled, and may be completed with flexible grout or setting mud.

Plaster Repair How To

2008-05-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

This blog will detail the advocacy of plaster repairs using a crack-repair material I make and offer for manufacture, that I call "Flexible Grout." Along with detail repair at cracks, I will address the durable replacement at large fractured areas, with "real" basecoat and finish plaster.

I will develop and post case studies, with pictures. I will also post related studies offered by others, including constructive comment upon trial of Flexible Grout. I will offer free samples of Flexible Grout upon sincere query, with mutual promise of blog-posted, unedited discussion. We will agree that any differences of view will be addressed by comments to a posting.