Tough, strong filler???

[Aberlee]

Hi,
I'm after a filler for a plaster wall that will fill to a depth of approx 50mm, and will set and bind strong enough to screw a load bearing bracket into (curtain pole). There's no other place to fix the bracket, and the areas been filled and refiled so many times there's just no strength in the wall in that area anymore.
Any ideas, i was thinking of some kind of epoxy filler prehaps???
Cheers!

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

I wouldn't use epoxy.

Just scrape out the loose plaster, paint the surfaces you want the new plaster to stick well to with PVA wood glue diluted with water to make it into a paintable consistancy, and then fill that big crack with a base coat plaster.

Then skim coat over that with a finish coat plaster.

Then drill your hole through the finish coat into the base coat and drive in a plastic anchor.

That'll be plenty strong enough to support any curtain pole.

 

[Aberlee]

Thanks Nestor, thats what I thought at first, but tried that already (job was even done by a Pro whilst plastering the room), however, the hole is kinda conical shaped, and the refilled/plastered area pulls straight back out when ever any weights put on it.
Would putting a couple of screws into the sound plaster to act as an anchor help at all??
Cheers.

 

[big-all]

heeelllooo aberlee


your hole should be drilled deep enough for the wall/lintel to take the weight
if nessisery knock the plug in through the plaster till its at least 20 mm into solid wall

also make shure the screw isnt longer than the hole youve drilled in the lintel othewise it could push the plug out

 

[Aberlee]

Now, here's the other problem, the lintel behind the plaster, over the glazing unit, appears to be a hollow metal box affair, that isn't going to help at all if I drill into it, as that was my first plan, fix into the lintel with a longer screw, but noooooo, that would be far to easy

 

[big-all]

aaahh ok silly me i made the assumption it was conctere
can you not affix [screw/glue ]a wooden block to the lintel then plaster over
dependant on depth avalable!!!!!!

 

[Aberlee]

aaahh ok silly me i made the assumption it was conctere
can you not affix [screw/glue ]a wooden block to the lintel then plaster over
dependant on depth avalable!!!!!!

Concreate, are you mad, that would make life easy!!
Wooden block and plaster over was my "everything else has failed, going to to have get the chisel out"plan, was hoping to avoid that, but good to know it wasn't a dumb idea to start with,
Thanks Big-All!

 

[big-all]

i would wait cos someone else might come up with a wonder filler that would make less mess

 

[JohnD]

Trying to hang fittings on plaster isn't going to work. You should always fix through the plaster onto the wall behind.

However, it is possible to drill into a steel lintel. You can then either fix into it with a self-tapping screw (these are in hardened steel and will fix to the steel sheet your lintel is made from) or (less of an engineers method, but it does work) you can drill a hole through the lintel that a plastic wallplug will fit into, and you can put a woodscrew into that.

If you don't like either of those idea, you will have a brick or block wall built on top of the lintel, so you could fix your curtain rail up there, and buy longer curtains.

 

[Aberlee]

Cheers for that John,
I'm going to try filling it once more, as it can't do any harm, and it may work, as it's not the main weight bearing bracket, the outer brackets are screwed in tight.
If it pulls out, then, yes I guess I'll have to raise the pole up the wall, going to look a bit daft, but not as daft as my curtains lying in a pile on the floor covered in plaster debris

 

[JohnD]

OK, well, have a bash at drilling a hole into the lintel that your plasplug will fit into, then filling round it. I bet the plaster is less than an inch thick.

You can drill into it with an ordinary drill (HSS twist drill) not a masonry bit.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Aberlee: You said:

"however, the hole is kinda conical shaped, and the refilled/plastered area pulls straight back out when ever any weights put on it."

If you paint the exposed surfaces that you want the base coat plaster to stick to with white wood glue (PVA) diluted with enough water to make it into a paintable consistancy, then that should bond the new base coat plaster you fill that crack with to the surfaces inside that crack.

That is, I can't understand why you're say the base coat plaster will just pull out of the crevice when it's glued into that crevice. (It's kinda like saying you can lick a stamp, but it'll pull right off the envelope because there's nothing holding from pulling off that flat surface. Or, am I not understanding the situation correctly?)

(Alternatively, use a concrete bonding agent instead of PVA for a more water resistant repair.)

 

[Aberlee]

Thanks for the input Nestor, the hole was PVA'd then plastered exactly as you suggested to start with, it simply didn't work I'm afraid
Going to try again though, see if I can do a better job than the plasterer (iffy, I know). One more question (until the next one), would using morter instead of plaster be any stronger, or would that cause problems with binding at the interface?
Cheers for you time!

 

[JohnD]

If you have a weak material (plaster) then its limits will be quite low. If it is half an inch thick and you pull on it, with a screw fastened to the plaster, then the plaster will either break away. or just break

If you glue it to the plaster around it, then the plaster around it will break.

You need to transfer the load to a stronger material: brickwork, concrete or the steel lintel.

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

Aberlee:

Not sure why the original repair failed, but it could be that the base coat plaster was sticking to a weak surface.

In my building, the plaster walls are 3/4 inch thick. If I drill a hole in them and use a plastic anchor, that'll be strong enough to support a curtain rod (cuz you typically have at least 3 or 4 curtain rod hangers).

Maybe what the problem is is that you only support the curtain rod at each end, and it's a big heavy curtain. In that case, I agree with the other advice that you need to anchor the screw into something solid behind that plaster.

Brick mortar may be an option, but that's venturing off the well beaten path, so how well it works will be determined by trial and error. See if you can fasten to anything solid inside the wall before venturing off the well beaten path.