Good advice from Diyisfree.....excuse the others..pebbledashing is a closely guarded trade secret, but I'll let you in on a few of them for your essay
Do as Diyisfree says with the render...you can paint if you like or add a dye to the mortar previously, but the trick is to dash the pebbles at the right time...you can use a machine, but this is the lazy way and you don't get such a good spread. Once the render is just right to take the pebbles, which takes years of experience to judge correctly.....that's a whole other lesson
...you get enough qualified pebble dashers together. Darts players often pebble dash to help subsidise their beer money...as you can probably guess from their bellies, this can be quite a lucrative business, but that's because there's such an art to it! Anyway, once you've got the dashers together, I usually use a team of 10-12, they're all lined up on the top scaffold boards(we reinforce ours, as we employ only the best, which naturally tend to be the heaviest) each with a bucket of pebbles at the ready, they throw the pebbles at just the right speed so that they embed nicely into the render, but not to hard to either go too deep or pull the render from the wall. You'd be surprised how quickly an experienced team can complete a job....and they have to work fast before the render sets and the pub shuts! We usually cover 1-2 metre heights at a time.
Well, that's enough pointers for you to be going on with......do come back and let us know how well you did in your essay...and don't be put off if your lecturers haven't heard of this method, as it's been passed down from father dart-player to son dart-player, with an oath of secrecy. I'm sure I'll be barred from my local if they ever find out...don't tell anyone else, okay?
Good luck!
