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In article ,
(agent zero) writes:
I've seen lots of threads on pebble dashing but no one so far has
actually said how its done.

Sheet of polythene on the ground under the wall to catch the stones
which don't stick (which is most of them). Bucket of stones under
left arm, small hand spade in right hand (ideally about 4" square,
flat bottomed with lip round 3 sides). Stand, back to the wall, as
close as you can without touching it. Spade goes in bucket and comes
out with stones on it, and you bring your right arm with spade up
quickly to your right shoulder and stop abruptly with the spade
facing the wall. The stones continue to fly just above your
shoulder into the wall, leaving a pattern of stones stuck to the
render which is same size and shape as the spade. Most of the stones
fall away, because they hammered the stone in front into the render
and there was no more exposed render to stick to. You repeat this
over and over, moving along by the width of the spade each time,
and you will then have a line of stones across the render. You will
need to recover the stones from the sheet and refill your bucket
every so often.

I've only done this in a class, not for real. When I looked back
at what I'd done, my line wasn't very straight and there were some
patches missing which needed another spadefull aimed at them. The
teacher who demonstrated was doing about 4 spadefulls a second,
had a perfectly straight line, and of course, no patches missing
(and didn't even need to turn round to check there were none
missing;-).

What is the technique for applying the stones evenly, or is there a
device that will distribute them quickly and evenly.

You don't apply 'evenly', you apply completely, so as little
render as possible shows. The stones are supposed to the the
exposed surface to fend off the elements.

+ how thick should the render be.

Hum -- I don't remember. We did two coats -- scratch coat was about
10mm, and the top coat probably depends on the size of the stones,
I would guess about 1/2 their diameter. I'm not 100% sure if pebbledash
really needs a scratch coat (we used the scratch coat for other
finishes too, which certainly did need it).

I'm doing an area at the front of my house that measures about 15 by
10 feet ( its not even that big because most of the area is window )

I'll bet there's no glass in it by the end... ;-)

which at present has some nasty cladding on it that I want to get rid
of, left by the previous occupants... it's vile!!

I would suggest you do not bring pebbledash down to a level where
people (particularly children) will brush or fall against it. It
can cause injuries.

It might be a good idea to practice somewhere first. If you mix
the render up as a 1:5 lime:sand mix (training mix) with no cement,
you can hack it all off afterwards providing you don't leave it too
long, although it will stain the wall.

--
Andrew Gabriel
Consultant Software Engineer