On 30 Jun 2004 09:44:26 -0700, (N. Thornton) wrote:

Phil Addison wrote in message . ..

sounds like an excellent set of choices. The only thing I'm uncertain
about is what mix would be best for the internal rendering. I've asked
people here about it, on ukdiy, so will see what they say. Last time I
did something similar I put a thin layer of 1:1:6 on then filled the
rest in with 1:1:4. That way the bricks see soft mortar so they dont
get admaged later, and you still get a lot of the wall and surface
strength of a stronger mix. And I believe the lime content has limited
crack healing ability.

Oh well, it's done now with just one coat of 1:1:6. At least I aimed for
1:1:6 but the finished surface looks quite brown so I hope I haven't got
too much sand in it. It went on ok though, and stuck ok, so hopefully it
is ok.

I made a tool to level it consisting of a long straight batten that
reaches the sound wall on either side. To that I nailed a strip of ply
protruding 4mm, and length slightly less than the width of the cavity.
The idea being that this would scrape the render flat and leave 4mm
clear for a plaster skim. That worked out quite well.

I have scratched the surface and left it to go off overnight. How long
does it normally take to go off enough to plaster, or should I wait till
it is dry (Andrew said to skim after 24hrs but I think that was on a
bonding scratch coat) - I suppose it is about the same. Anyway I
finished about 8pm tonight so plan to start the skim Friday morning.

One worry I have is that I tested the brickwork to see how much it had
dried out, and according to my squawking detector, it hadn't dried out
much at all. However my window sill has droplets on it from light rain
so I reckon that is reasonably silicone proofed, and I am hoping the
squawk from the detector is due to residual salts in the bricks, along
with some moisture.

Phil
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