The trick to plaster repair is to remove all of the damaged plaster. If you
just try and mud over cracks and soft spots then you are going to be in
trouble.

Once you have the damaged area cleared out, use a chisel to dig into the old
plaster to be sure that there is no loose sandy stuff, you want to have a
slight undercut.

Next be sure the lath is in good shape and trowel in a base coat. This gets
scraped while still soft to give the next layer something to hang on to.
The final can be done with joint compound. It is softer than plaster and
easier to blend the texture to match.

I have used Fixall to patch plaster and grinding the stuff smooth after it
dried was a real PITA.

--
Roger Shoaf
If you are not part of the solution, you are not dissolved in the solvent.


"Chris" wrote in message
...
The bulges area few inches long, with a crack in the center, and the
plaster around the crack separating from the backing.. underneath the
crack is the base coat, still intact and flat.

but, along the stair way there is a HUGE bulge about two feet long..
and about 1/2 foot wide.. It looks like a patch someone attempted
previously, and it pulled away from the base coat.

If I was to attempt to patch the buldges, what would be the procedure?
Would I chisel out the loose top coat and the patch it? what kind of
plaster would this be to match the thin, smooth top coat?

The guy who looked at this said he would charge me $700 to tape and
patch, and do two coats of the joint compound. It sounds like an OK
price, but I want to make sure this is an acceptable way. It seems to
be an way, since I had another guy over whom I did not trust right
away because he said he was ready to start right away and that I
didn't have to finish removing the wall paper. he said he would just
go right over top of the wall paper in three coats and it would look
like a brand new wall.. yeah right..

On Feb 24, 4:27 pm, "JoeSpareBedroom" wrote:
"Chris" wrote in message

...

I am removing wallpaper in an 80 year old house. Underneath the
wallpaper is plater walls. In many areas, the top coat is cracking, or
buldging away from the horsehair base. The base is still solid and
intact.

The areas that are bulging - how big are they?

I had a guy over to see about restoring the walls. He said he will
hammer out the buldges, tape cracks and then go over the walls with
two coats of joint compound and sand.

Is this a standard procedure? I was just reading an article on line
saying that joint compound is meant for drywall, and the real way of
dealing with plaster repair is to use plaster products.

For cracks which you feel are minor, especially around windows & doorways,
joint compound will work fine as long as there's no bulging, which
indicates
that the plaster's separated from the backing. For anything bigger than a
dinner plate, plaster's the way to go.

The thing is, I asked him this, and he said that he doesn't have
experience with plaster, all he knows is that a plaster person is alot
more expensive than he is, and a plaster project is not a DIY project.
but, his procedure will still work..

Plaster can be a DIY project, but it depends on your patience level, and
how
long you're willing to put a wall/room out of use. In places where the old
stuff's been removed all the way to the backing, the new plaster should be
applied in layers so each layer has a chance to dry completely. Depending
on
climate and time of year, that could take a couple of weeks, especially on
chilly exterior walls.

Also, you can't mix large batches of plaster because it begins to set up
in
the pan pretty quickly. It's much more involved than working with drywall
compound. If plasterers are more expensive, that would be one reason why.

Good luck finding a plasterer, too. About 15 years ago, I was acquainted
with an architect who was involved with constructing a new office building
here. The lobby required some sort of fancy plaster work. They had to
import
plasterers from Austria. Nobody here knew how to do whatever it was they
needed done.