Hi,
In the November FH there was an article that talked about repairing old plaster walls and making them almost new again (“Make Old Walls Smooth and Sound” by Tim Leahy, FH 208)
I’ve just finished stripping a hundred years of paint and wall paper from a long plaster wall in my house and want to try this technique to get the walls ‘smooth and sound’ but I can’t find the 3′ wide self-adhesive fiberglass mesh the author uses. Anyone know who makes this… who might carry it in the Toronto area? I can find rolls that wide that are used for stucco and don’t have the self-adhesive quality and I could use this, but it seems like a lot more work and kinda tricky too.
My other question is about joint compound. Do you think I could use the CGC Dust Control product rather than a super-hard super-heavy and super-messy one, like what the author uses?
Thank you for the help.
Replies
Here's a link to a website that sells the Fibatape self-adhesive super crack stop wide repair tape (boy, that's a mouthful):
http://www.warehousebay.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=49
I've never used it, but I've done a bit of skim-coating without it. The dust control compound is more of a topping compound and is not quite as adhesive. It would probably work, but I would rather use regular compound (or better yet, Durabond) for the first coat (apply a very thin coat to avoid sanding) and then use the topping compound for the second/subsequent coats.
Toronto Supplier
It's too late for you, but I also had to find someone stocking this in Toronto. Most suppliers did not seem to know what I was talking about, but Bernardi Building Supply told me they stocked it.