On 09/11/2018 12:26, wrote:
On Friday, 9 November 2018 11:24:03 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/11/2018 11:06, Marland wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 08/11/2018 20:56, Rob Morley wrote:
On Thu, 8 Nov 2018 17:44:25 +0000
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

I am faced with masking filling and sanding plater/filler between
oak beams that have shrink

Its proving a monumental task, esp. the sanding

Mt orbital sander tears the masking tape and its prone to grind the
ends off the sheet of abrasive if it gets too close to a wall.

I bought a 'palm' sander from Wickes for £15 his morning,. It lasted
20 mins before the sanding pad fell off and the Velcro underneath got
buggered. I took it back and got a refund.


The job is as you can see here..

http://www.larksrise.com/Project%20P...4064881918.jpg
http://www.larksrise.com/Project%20P...n/DSC_0003.JPG

Any advice welcomed.

Don't sand and don't mask. Hack off any unevenness before filling,
fill deep and scrape the filler back flush with the existing good
surface, then fill it smooth with a second coat once the first coat
is firm enough. Ordinary Polyfilla or one-coat plaster works fine
for me - if the edges open up after a while use decorator's caulk,
which will allow a bit of movement.
And cut the edge in properly with a bit of brush skill, ferchrissakes.


If I dont mask the beams get full of filler.

And it takes three times as long to get THAT off.


I have serious eye issues. And joint issues. 'brush skill' is
nonexistent. As is plastering skill. I can sand though.

It takes long enough to actually apply the masking, but at least I can
do it time and again till its right without it being irrevocable

In you airplane hobby have you ever come across Humbrol Maskol which is a
liquid applied mask that dries to a thin rubbery finish and later is
peeled off.
Using it in quantity would be prohibitively expensive but perhaps someone
on here knows of something similar
available that is more economical, Copydex perhaps. More expensive than
tape but if it saves muscle pain.


Applying tape is in fact the quickest part of what I am doing. Then the
caulking is second, painting is minutes per bay. Filling and sanding
are hours per bay.

That's what I want to throw money at to get the time down

So far it seems that there are lots of suggestions but not many to
actually achieve what I want.

If you're doing any sanding at all after filling you're doing the filling wrong. It's totally practical to fill perfectly with zero sanding, I do it plenty. As I said most people fail to follow the basic rule. It doesn't matter if the thing isn't 100% filled yet, but it does have to have absolutely zero protrusion. Not a speck. It normally takes 3 layers to get perfect, but as the technique is new to you it'll take more than 3. Accept that, it's still far less work than filling and practice will make perfect. Once you've got the hang of it it should become practical to imitate the surface finish around the filled patch to make it invisible.

Bonding plaster sure is cheaper than filler or caulk cartridges.


NT


And filling long cracks like that without getting any on the beam is
easy if you use a plasters trowel instead of one of those silly
'filling' knifes.

Just use the filling knife to build a line of filler along the
long edge of a plasters trowel and then wipe it into the gap, away
from the beam.