# Plaster with Sand Texture



## jamiedolan

HI;

My name is Jamie, From Wisconsin. My dad and I have worked together on small remodel and some new construction jobs for a number of years, and my dad has been in the construction business since the early 80's. My dad does alot of fine woodworking, custom cabinets, etc. but we also work on some remodel type of projects like kitchen remodels, bath remodel, finishing basements, and have managed some new construction (and did alot of the work ourselves).

The particular project that we have gotten stuck on is actually my own home. We are doing a gut and remodel in the kitchen. Something we have done a number of times before. Now we have several areas of significant size that need to be patched and we want to match the texture that was there.

In this house I have plaster walls over 18"x8' blueboard, its traditional plaster over blueboard, not veneer, from the early 1960's. 

It is a fine sand textured finish. The damage is in areas that will be noticeable, so it is important that we come up with something that is close.

We normally use durrabond, & plus 3, to patch (mainly durrabond to patch plaster), and can end up getting a pretty close match to the orig finish in most cases, but we are not getting any results comparable to the fine sand finish in my walls. 

Do I need to find some fine silica sand to add to the durrabond or can you suggest a better product? I was thinking of trying to use USG's vener plaster system. But am not positive how this will bond to the existing plaster.

I realize there is going to be a learning cure for use here since we have done very little plaster work (beyond small patching as mentioned), but had done a lot of regular sheet rock.

Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you very much.

Jamie


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## Muddauber

^^ Where's Frank? ^^:thumbsup:


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## jamiedolan

Muddauber said:


> ^^ Where's Frank? ^^:thumbsup:


I just did a search, found someone on here named frank, looks like he is the Plaster patching guy.  

I am going to go read his old posts and look for helpful info. If he has a chance to chime in, that would be great.

Thanks so much,

Jamie


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## jamiedolan

*Photos*

Images of what the plaster looks like:

















The area I need to fix: (yea I know the paint looks horrible, started with painting the kitchen and before a second coat of paint went on, it turned into a full remodel job, that area shown is where a sofit box used to be.









Thanks again
Jamie


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## Whitey97

from how I see it, you have a couple of choices. Orange peel the whole thing for a quick blend. skim it all for smooth, go to your paint supply store, and they sell an additive for the paint, I've used it, from what I can tell, looks similar. If you have a diamond vogel, I know they carry it. If you want I can look for the box/product


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## Whitey97

any luck?

you know, looking at the last pic, why do you think it's plaster if it has sheetrock?


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## jamiedolan

Whitey97 said:


> any luck?
> 
> you know, looking at the last pic, why do you think it's plaster if it has sheetrock?


I don't know a ton about plaster, but I know that the board you see if Rocklath. USG still makes it today in 18"x10' sheets. There is about 1/2" built up on top of the boards you see exposed where the sofit box was. 

I had not considered adding the texture with paint. There is a guy at the local paint store where I get Benjamin moore from that is pretty sharp, I'll ask him about this option. 

From looking at the walls, I am pretty sure the texture was done with plaster and not with paint, but can't say that 100%.

I kind of get the feeling these days that plaster is a lost art.

If you were going to topcoat it all so it was smooth, what would you use?

Thank You
Jamie


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## Whitey97

my new mark 5

if you don't have one of those, which i'm sure you don't(no disrepect) skim the surface with lite-blue. pro-form, sheet-rock... whatever... just the same ol' shiz. really easy. thin it up a little. trowel it on, sand it off. best results with 2 thin coats.


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## [email protected]

Better throw down for Plaster weld before you skim the whole wall or at least bust off the shine with 80 grit. My preference though would be to overlay with new board if it doesn't throw off your reveals.


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## Whitey97

That may work as well.


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## jamiedolan

Whitey97 said:


> my new mark 5
> 
> if you don't have one of those, which i'm sure you don't(no disrepect) skim the surface with lite-blue. pro-form, sheet-rock... whatever... just the same ol' shiz. really easy. thin it up a little. trowel it on, sand it off. best results with 2 thin coats.


I looked up the mark 5, Nice looking machine $$$$. We just have a cheap sprayer for texture. 

I will pick up some of that plaster weld and then do a skim coat and see how it looks. If it doesn't work, worst case I'll have to overlay as you guys suggested.

Thanks
Jamie


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## Whitey97

Hurry up already! I wanna see final pics!


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## jamiedolan

Whitey97 said:


> Hurry up already! I wanna see final pics!


:thumbup: I will make sure to come post some photos as soon as I get it done. Thanks.
Jamie


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## Apple24

High pressure with a mark 5 will give you that texture, you have to make a couple of quick passes with your sprayer held far from lid so you dont get the fingers to form a line. Also you need to make fast pass acroos lid or it will pool,let dry 10-30 mins another quick pass should blend right in. You can also buy a fine dry bagged texture mud.I actually used to do this texture w/ plaster in the 80's. It was really thin lime guaging and 2 coffee cans of silica sand. Another way would be to get a hopper and thin down all purpose add sand spray it, smallest orifice, high pressure


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## Frankawitz

Jamie,
The sand finish you have is kinda tricky, but what I would do is fill the hole area with Durabond 90 pull it flush with the original plaster, take a 4" razor scraper and shave the text off the smooth plaster ceiling, then once you have your repair leve you can use a darby, then for your skim coat you want to add silica sand like 3 to 1 on your mix, trowel it on then use a paint brush to blend the edges, I like to wait intil it starts to set up, but just play with it, til it looks good to your eye, also walk around the repair check it, I have done these and if it don't look right I have torn them out and redid it. these are hard repairs cause of the sand, Yes there are sand you can add to paints, but it's the evenest that is hard to get when your patching, you always can have that line around the repair that catchs someone's eye. Good luck


www.frankawitz.net


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## jamiedolan

Frankawitz said:


> Jamie,
> The sand finish you have is kinda tricky, but what I would do is fill the hole area with Durabond 90 pull it flush with the original plaster, take a 4" razor scraper and shave the text off the smooth plaster ceiling, then once you have your repair leve you can use a darby, then for your skim coat you want to add silica sand like 3 to 1 on your mix, trowel it on then use a paint brush to blend the edges, I like to wait intil it starts to set up, but just play with it, til it looks good to your eye, also walk around the repair check it, I have done these and if it don't look right I have torn them out and redid it. these are hard repairs cause of the sand, Yes there are sand you can add to paints, but it's the evenest that is hard to get when your patching, you always can have that line around the repair that catchs someone's eye. Good luck
> 
> 
> www.frankawitz.net


Hi Frank,

I have been doing some experimenting to see if I could end up matching it without having to skim coat and use a new texture on the whole area. 

I have been playing with a Mixture of Keens Cement, Hydrated Lime, and Screened sand. I did a text spot, and I got a look that is pretty close to my original walls / ceilings. I am try to find some plain old gypsum plaster, something harder than durrabond for a basecoat. Plain old plaster is not that easy to find these days. I am not positive that Keens is the best choice for the base coat.

So my plan was to bring that hole back just shy of flush with a hard gypsum plaster, then to skim in the top to the edges with the keeens mixture. I read that Durrabond isn't hard enough to go over with Keens cement. I have plaster bond also for around the edges. I also purchased a rotozip, that should help clean up the edges a bit as well. 

If I can't get it to turn out right, I may have to plaster bond the whole ceiling, and do a skim coat over the whole thing as we had discussed here earlier. 

It seems like I am fairly close to getting the plaster to work out and be the correct texture. I am going to do some more texting on my mixes proboly later tonight.

Thanks very much to everyone for the assistance
Jamie


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## jamiedolan

After advice from people here, and several plasterers on 2 other sites, I ended up with the following;

I covered the entire kitchen with Plaster Bonder, and I scrtached in 2 coats of Keenes Cement over a wall last night and today, and floated it out this evening. 

It was a bit nerve racking for a while, when I was waiting for it to be ready to float, I wasn't positive how it was going to turn out, but it ended up turning out very well. I couldn't get the best photos tonight, but if you look closely, you will see that I was able to float all the sand fines up to the surface and float a swirl pattern into it. The pattern I did on the wall is closer to the pattern that was on my ceiling, but since I am doing all the wall over in the kitchen, I deiced to put the sand float pattern in everything.

I plan to plaster the rest of the kitchen walls the same way to blend it all together, I will put the same sand float finish on everything.

Thanks again for the help
Jamie


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## Whitey97

very nice


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## Frankawitz

Jamie,
I seen you made it over to WC, Bill and the other guys will steer you in the right direction, good group, just allot of politics, did you get your WC magazine?


www.frankawitz.net


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## Whitey97

*correction* saw.... you saw, not seen. get your tenses right....damnit!

and as long as I'm taking the time to correct, it's A LOT 2 words.... friggen A


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## Frankawitz

******,
It sounds like you need to be in the class room, I spell like I talk lol!
I never really cared for school, have you ever listend to some black folks talk, I bet you couldn't understand them even if you have a guide book,:thumbup: Hey you got to remember I'm just outside Detroit and they talk E Bontix or something like Dat! ha ha


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## Whitey97

It's all good, I just enjoy busting on you guys. However, just because we're tapers doesn't mean we can't hold ourselves to a higher level, right? oh, believe me minneapolis has plenty of the "folks" that speak ebonics. We're not too far from eachother, we have similar circumstances. Hell, I was in the ghetto yesterday checking on an ext. house paint that I won't be doing due to the condition of the neighborhood!

*remember, teachers get paid less than const. workers. That wouldn't be a good fit for me, plus I hate other peoples kids.


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## jamiedolan

HI;

Yep, the folks on WC (as well as a gentlemen on the doityourself forum) have been very helpful with the plaster work. I did run into a few difficulties with getting things set before they dried out. However, I got my hands on a few accelerating agents now, and that should take care of the problem. 

Hopefully I will have alot more to show off in the next couple days.

Do any of you guys do the veneer plasters on a regular basis? They seem like a great system without a whole lot of extra cost.

Jamie


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## jamiedolan

Frankawitz said:


> Jamie,
> I seen you made it over to WC, Bill and the other guys will steer you in the right direction, good group, just allot of politics, did you get your WC magazine?
> 
> 
> www.frankawitz.net


I don't think I did, I will have to check the magazine out.
Thanks
Jamie


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## Muddauber

Whitey97 said:


> It's all good, I just enjoy busting on you guys. However, just because we're tapers doesn't mean we can't hold ourselves to a higher level, right? oh, believe me minneapolis has plenty of the "folks" that speak ebonics. We're not too far from eachother, we have similar circumstances. Hell, I was in the ghetto yesterday checking on an ext. house paint that I won't be doing due to the condition of the neighborhood!
> 
> *remember, teachers get paid less than const. workers. That wouldn't be a good fit for me, plus I hate other peoples kids.


 
******,
Should'nt the o in oh, be a capital O?

Sorry dude,but we just can't let that slide.


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## Whitey97

you are correct, see... I said in one of my past posts that I was only human, I don't get them all correct!


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## Frankawitz

Jamie,
They will send your magazine to you for free, cause your in the trade, just fill out the form and they will get you on the list to send you the magazine on a monthly bases. some good reading, if your doing a lot of new construction, they have some good info on new products that come out. I don't go to the site that much cause they get into the politics hot and heavy at times. I get sick of reading some of the stuff, They don't talk about the trade as much as they use to. I was glad to find this site, here they talk about the trades.



www.frankawitz.net


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## R.E. Plaster

I realize that in referring to the original question I a little late ( a new member ) but repairing plaster isn't to hard you just need to make sure you have the right materials. 
first any time you are going over existing plaster you sould use a plaster weld ( glue) if you can't find anything like that go to Home Depot and get some concrete glue same thing.
Then when you apply your base cote you will want to make sure you have a bucket of water with a good cellulose sponge to feather out your edges. 
For your finish coat finish plaster is lime, sand ,& keenes cement
1 part lime
2 part sand
use keenes which makes the finish hard
After you apply your finish cote you will use your sponge again to float out your edges, but also you use it to bring out the sand in the finish which gives you your design ( use hot water and wear rubber gloves when you do this as it will make your life eaiser)
You can check out our site and look at some of the things we've repaired
www.replasteringinc.com 
any questions let us know :thumbsup:


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## JCardoza

I've used the plaster veneer on a few jobs. It can be a challenge. Use two (accurate) teaspoons of cream of tarter to give yourself a longer working time. In the past I would just patch plaster with hotset, then prime it with silica sand mixed into USG first coat... Never quite matched perfectly. But I could get it close if I worked it. 

Last summer, we did two floors of an old commercial building with the veneer. (USG bonder, full coverage EFIS mesh, USG veneer base coat, then smooth veneer finish.) By the end of the job the owner had us switch to drywall mud for our finish coat to save money. The plaster veneer finish coat was tough to keep on top of... I had a large crew on the job for about month I think. It was beautiful when we were done though.


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## Chrismac

jamiedolan said:


> HI;
> 
> My name is Jamie, From Wisconsin. My dad and I have worked together on small remodel and some new construction jobs for a number of years, and my dad has been in the construction business since the early 80's. My dad does alot of fine woodworking, custom cabinets, etc. but we also work on some remodel type of projects like kitchen remodels, bath remodel, finishing basements, and have managed some new construction (and did alot of the work ourselves).
> 
> The particular project that we have gotten stuck on is actually my own home. We are doing a gut and remodel in the kitchen. Something we have done a number of times before. Now we have several areas of significant size that need to be patched and we want to match the texture that was there.
> 
> In this house I have plaster walls over 18"x8' blueboard, its traditional plaster over blueboard, not veneer, from the early 1960's.
> 
> It is a fine sand textured finish. The damage is in areas that will be noticeable, so it is important that we come up with something that is close.
> 
> We normally use durrabond, & plus 3, to patch (mainly durrabond to patch plaster), and can end up getting a pretty close match to the orig finish in most cases, but we are not getting any results comparable to the fine sand finish in my walls.
> 
> Do I need to find some fine silica sand to add to the durrabond or can you suggest a better product? I was thinking of trying to use USG's vener plaster system. But am not positive how this will bond to the existing plaster.
> 
> I realize there is going to be a learning cure for use here since we have done very little plaster work (beyond small patching as mentioned), but had done a lot of regular sheet rock.
> 
> Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you very much.
> 
> Jamie


In Arizona we add some silica sand to get this to match up hope it helps


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