I see 25 lb. bags of "patching plaster" for sale and 25 lb. bags of
"Fix-It-All" for about $2 more. Which is the better buy?

My 90+ year old house is mostly lath and plaster and there's a lot of
bulging and fallen away plaster.

I bought a trowel and made a hawk and am ambitious to learn and apply
knowledge on plaster repair. One guy told me he thought it would be
better for me to put up 1/4 inch sheetrock on a ceiling that has a lot
of falling plaster. My sheetrock experience is nil, but I have some
pieces from a leftover sheetrock job.

Hopefully, a foundation removal and new foundation and house leveling is
in the works here, and I figure I should hold off on complete plaster
repairs until after that, but right now, there are some areas that I
think I should/could maybe tackle sooner.

TIA for guidance.

Dan

On 2006-08-09, Dan_Musicant wrote:

I see 25 lb. bags of "patching plaster" for sale and 25 lb. bags of
"Fix-It-All" for about $2 more. Which is the better buy?

Neither. For base coat patches (to the exposed wood lath), use
Struct-o-lite plaster, a premixed lightweight base plaster with
perlite as the aggregate. For finish coat patches, use Diamond brand
gypsum plaster with lime.

For SF Bay Area residents, these are both available at Alta Building
Materials in Oakland. Also, someone on craigslist.org is currently
advertising a free bag of Struct-o-Lite in Berkeley.

Cheers, Wayne

I agree with structolite, but for finish coat, drywall compound works
easier.