Sanding newly plastered walls prior to painting?

[roughcaster]

Richard not all plasterers plaster to your standard.

The good ones do Opps,, it's all about reputation and pride in the job.

 

[Richard C]

OK I’m not going to continue to argue with you about power sanders & their various merits in making things happen quickly, I do use them but them but this is going nowhere.

Off hand, one trade that works to high finishes is the automotive trade- they have been using DA sanders with extraction for years.

I’m going to sound terribly crass now & I hate to say it but, I know the automotive trade & refinishing trade very, very, very well. I have considerable experience in rebuilding & refinishing from panel bashing through welding, spray gun to hand refinishing. For run of the mill stuff on Monday morning shunts, DA OK, but many efforts at repair leave a lot to be desired &, again, are not what I would call a quality finish. I mainly worked on classic cars, rebuilding & refinishing to concourse standard & you can see my own personal nut & bolt hand rebuilt example in my photo album, do take a look. I would never use a power sander on such a job & if you can’t see the perfect reflection of a straight edge, albeit distorted by the curvature of the panel, it won't be worthy of concourse standard & you wouldn't believe the hours that can go into it. Not that I'm saying a plastered wall should look like that but, again, it's about high quality which is where I'm at.

Given away too much so going to shut up now & before you put 2 & 2 together RC it wasn’t my previous life (I’ll save that for another day; possibly!) it was merely a very pleasant distraction for a while which I may yet go back to!

 

[opps]

Richard not all plasterers plaster to your standard.

The good ones do Opps,, it's all about reputation and pride in the job.

I agree with you roughcaster.

I too take pride in my work thus I am willing to spend thousands on the best sanders available, ones that are suitable for the task in hand.

If I turn up on site to quote and insist that the walls are replastered before i have even stripped them back the client is going to look elsewhere.

As a decorator my remit is to make good the walls and line them. If they are really bad then I will recommend that they are replastered. However, in many of the houses that i work in the plaster has been slightly blown for dozens of years yet is still sound enough to last for many more years. If a client only plans to live there for 10 years they will not be willing to remove 120 year old plaster all the way back to the brickwork or laths, disrupting all of the original features.

They will expect me to provide a high quality finish that will preserve things as they are and at a cost that they consider acceptable. Owners of gorgian or victorian houses do not expect to have perfectly straight walls but they do want them to look smooth.

I agree that being able to plaster to a high standard is a worthy skill but at my age I do not have the time to learn how to do so and in the aforementioned houses skimming (alone) would not be a good move anyway.

 

[DuluxSelect5]

From my experiece over the last 18 years if you need to spend a lot of time making good a plastering job then the first thing to do is negotiate with the plasterer and give him less money. Most plastering jobs may need a couple of minutes afterwards to get rid of inperfections. I use a sharp scraper/blade and if necessary very fine sand paper. Whoever suggested using an electric sander is crazy. The reason for plastering in the first place is to get a finish ready for painting. If you need to use an electric sander then the job isn't up to standard. As with everything you get what you pay for.

 

[joe-90]

Check the date mate.

 

[DuluxSelect5]

Yep, i looked at the date before i posted. Im sure people are still looking at this blog now. Like me and you and other people who might have just had there walls plastered badly