I had a room with 1 wall of fresh plaster (new skim), other walls were
old plaster but bare (about 40 years old - almost all paint removed).

Here are the steps I followed to create a finish with lots of mud
cracks:

1. Allowed fresh skim coat to dry for 1 week.

2. I gave the entire room a single coat of Polybond, straight from the
tub. Let to dry over a few days. I figured this would be good to seal
the plaster.

3. Applied coat of Dulux matt emulsion, 4/1 water/paint as recommended
on the tin. Let to dry. I didn't notice any cracks after this coat.

4. Applied coat of same paint neat. Looked fine going on but when it
dried I noticed lots of "mud cracks" (a photo of the worst part of the
wall can be seen here
http://www.chrismccarthysoftware.com/magnolia.jpg).

I applied the paint using a sheepskin roller.

Questions:

1. What did I do wrong? I'm guessing I should have either mixed the
polybond with paint, or thinned the second coat (or both).
2. What should I do to fix it? Somebody told me I may need to burn off
the paint - Please say no !!!

Any help much appreciated !
Chris.

"Chris" wrote:
2. What should I do to fix it? Somebody told me I may need to burn off
the paint - Please say no !!!

You could try PolyCell Basecoat as it's slightly elastic and
covers hairline cracks. How wide are the cracks. Anything
more than 0.5mm and I think your looking at filling them.

Al

PS If the paint is curling up at the edges of the cracks, you're
probably going to have more problems.

Chris wrote:
[ snip snip emulsioning wall ] when it dried I noticed lots of
"mud cracks" (a photo of the worst part of the wall can be seen
he

http://www.chrismccarthysoftware.com/magnolia.jpg).

Yikes. That's as bad as I've seen....


I applied the paint using a sheepskin roller.

Well done. Wash it out properly and it will last for ages. Meths.
will revive it if you get hardened flecks of vinyl emulsion in it.


Questions:

1. What did I do wrong? I'm guessing I should have either mixed
the polybond with paint, or thinned the second coat (or both).
2. What should I do to fix it? Somebody told me I may need to
burn off the paint - Please say no !!!

I'm guessing that there's some sort of contamination on the wall
that's being affected by the VOCs in your emulsion. Commonly
wallpaper paste is the problem. The solution is to wash it off
with warm water and sugar soap, then rinse, until the wall no
longer feels at all "slimy". An alternative is to hang lining
paper vertically, and paint on that.
--


J.B.

"Chris" wrote in message
om...
I had a room with 1 wall of fresh plaster (new skim), other walls were
old plaster but bare (about 40 years old - almost all paint removed).

Here are the steps I followed to create a finish with lots of mud
cracks:

1. Allowed fresh skim coat to dry for 1 week.

2. I gave the entire room a single coat of Polybond, straight from the
tub. Let to dry over a few days. I figured this would be good to seal
the plaster.

3. Applied coat of Dulux matt emulsion, 4/1 water/paint as recommended
on the tin. Let to dry. I didn't notice any cracks after this coat.

4. Applied coat of same paint neat. Looked fine going on but when it
dried I noticed lots of "mud cracks" (a photo of the worst part of the
wall can be seen here
http://www.chrismccarthysoftware.com/magnolia.jpg).

I applied the paint using a sheepskin roller.

Questions:

1. What did I do wrong? I'm guessing I should have either mixed the
polybond with paint, or thinned the second coat (or both).
2. What should I do to fix it? Somebody told me I may need to burn off
the paint - Please say no !!!

Any help much appreciated !
Chris.

Try he
http://www.paintquality.co.uk/uk/ps/.../cracking.html
If you browse the site you may find somethimg more relevant.
HTH

I'm guessing that there's some sort of contamination on the wall
that's being affected by the VOCs in your emulsion. Commonly
wallpaper paste is the problem. The solution is to wash it off
with warm water and sugar soap, then rinse, until the wall no
longer feels at all "slimy". An alternative is to hang lining
paper vertically, and paint on that.

Actually, one wall had a fresh layer of skim and that was similarly
affected so that rules out a wallpaper paste contamination.

As the first (thinned) coat went on OK I'm guessing that the second
one was just too thick (I didn't thin it at all and perhaps could have
spread it about a bit more). The zoomed in picture actually makes it
look a little worse than it is. I've just tried giving it a light
sanding with a sanding pad and the cracks sand down pretty easily.

So, my plan of action is to lightly sand down the cracks and paint
over with a coat of 4/1 paint/water, this time taking care not to lay
it on too heavily.
Is it possible to get a final finish using thinned emulsion?

Does this seem reasonable? One guy told me that "if you coat a wall
with pure polybond you won't get a good finish no matter how many
coats of paint you apply". My feeling is that I can get a good finish
once I sand those hairline cracks out and repaint.

Finally, what is the definitive receipe for sealing a skimmed wall
(i.e. bonding then skim) ? Some say mixing 4 parts paint with 1 part
polybond is good for the first coat. There's a lot of conflicting
advise out there. Perhaps the paint manufacturers could offer a little
more advice on the tin.

Thanks a lot for the advice!

Cheers,
Chris.

In message , Chris
writes

Finally, what is the definitive receipe for sealing a skimmed wall
(i.e. bonding then skim) ? Some say mixing 4 parts paint with 1 part
polybond is good for the first coat. There's a lot of conflicting
advise out there. Perhaps the paint manufacturers could offer a little
more advice on the tin.

All the tines I can remember reading say pretty much the same thing -
certainly the emulsion I recently used did.

Paint the wall with a diluted first coat (about 20%), that's it. That's
what I've always done.

Occasionaly they recommend their own expensive plaster sealant, but I've
never used it.
--
Chris French, Leeds

chris French wrote in message ...

Paint the wall with a diluted first coat (about 20%), that's it. That's
what I've always done.

Indeed, it works fine.

I have a small improvement on it, which is to paint the wall with
water, give it a few mins to soak in, then paint with emulsion neat.
Its quicker, less messy, and the first coat ends up much denser. Minor
tho.

Regards, NT

Paint the wall with a diluted first coat (about 20%), that's it. That's
what I've always done.

Indeed, it works fine.

I have a small improvement on it, which is to paint the wall with
water, give it a few mins to soak in, then paint with emulsion neat.
Its quicker, less messy, and the first coat ends up much denser. Minor
tho.

Thanks, I'll try that next time. I'm never gonna touch polybond prior
to painting again !

You could try PolyCell Basecoat as it's slightly elastic and
covers hairline cracks. How wide are the cracks. Anything
more than 0.5mm and I think your looking at filling them.

Sanding, cleaning then repainting didn't do much for me so I've tried
your idea and put on a coat of PolyCel basecoat. Looks very promising
so far, pretty much dry now and no sign of cracking yet. A few parts
needed a second coat to completely cover the cracks.

Note that the cracks could also be removed (temporarily in some cases)
by rubbing the wall with a damp cloth. This seemed to destabilise the
paint and fill in the cracks. When I painted over it they all came
back though.
I only hope that with all the **** I've put on the wall that it'll all
hold together for a few years when I'm done.

I'll try painting over the basecoat tomorrow and post the results.

Thanks a mil' for the tip Al !
Chris.

Just to finish off the thread, the Polycell basecoat did the trick.
The finish is perfect after painting over it.

Thanks a lot for the help.
Chris.

Just to finish off the thread, the Polycell basecoat did the trick.
The finish is perfect after painting over it.

Thanks a lot for the help.
Chris.