All throughout my posts here and on my website I try to stress how important it is to scrape back plastering works between coats.

I always mention to scrape gack when the plaster is green (set but no dry). However there is a time when its just not practicle to do so. This week I had to fix a job where the plasterer had made no attempt to scrape back and left the job in a mess reinforcing the point I make about scraping back.

But what happens when you finish a coat of plaster at a time when you cant wait around for it to set enough to scrape back? The next day it is so hard it is almost impossible to scrape back properly. This also happened to me this week while putting up p50 angles. The bubbles back and trowell off marks just have to be scaped back to make a good job of it. What makes this very easy is to simply wipe over the area to be scraped back with a wet sponge. It softens the plaster in minutes so it can be scraped back as if it were still green. Yet when it dries almost as quick it retains its hardness.

So if you find yourself with plaster to hard to scrape back don't let it go, get out a sponge and o the job properly. Not scraping off trowell off marks etc will lead to a very ordinary job.

Hope this helps you weekend plasterers.

Cheers Rod


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