My plaster repair is coming along, but I’ve hit a snag: “waves” in old plaster left a gap along the chair rail. I guess I could have built up the plaster even more, but I’m losing my patience.
There is a deep void behind this trim, so I can’t just fill it with foam. Would caulk work here? Would have to stick only to backside of trim. If so, what kind? And should caulk be applied before or after primer?
Many thanks–room must be finished by next weekend!
Marc
Replies
Yes. Plain ol' latex caulk, before the paint.
Unless there's something I'm not seeing or understanding...
I second plain ol' latex caulk. Get the better quality, 35 year siliconized (not pure silicone!!!). Make sure it's completely dry before you paint. You may need to do a second caulking in places where it sucks in from shrinkage.
Note, if it were unpainted wood I would skim it with Durabond 90. Lucky for you it's painted. Caulk it, get on with your project. :o)
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You know I was thinking about this a little while ago.
I was also thinking that caulk just looks like caulk and I think sometimes there are shrinkage issues.
I was at a friends house and looked at his wanscotting (same issue as with chair rail). It looked and felt to me that teh builder used grout! It was very hard to teh touch of my finger nail. And it looked GREAT!
Any thoughts on this idea?
You mean like tile grout? All I can imagine is it's cracking to pieces with the movement of the wall and the chair rail. I can't see it working very well.-----------------------------------------------------------
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I don't know. For the life of me I can not figure out what was used if it were not tile grout! I looked GREAT! caulk is just plain rubbery.
Just asking if anyone heard of using something hard or grout? ???
Just a guess, but could it have been sanded caulk? Like you'd use where your tile hits the wall?View Image
How hard does sanded caulk get?
Of course it's rubbery, that's the whole idea.
From looking at that photo the opening is for the most part on the underside of the chair rail. Nobody is ever going to look that close, much less touch it or otherwise scrutinize it. Unless the trim or the plaster is loose, caulk will not crack with changes in humidity or tempurature. Anything brittle, such as grout or plaster, will crack.
Almost all of my work is in older houses and apartments, pre 1950's. I run into a lot of this, especially when wall paper has been removed. I see it at base caps, chair rails, picture moldings, crown moldings... I don't know why but the plaster just seems to fall apart under these areas. If the trim is varnished I either remove the trim, repair the wall and reinstall the trim, or I use Durabond 90 (actually, EasySand 90) to float the wall flush with the trim. If the trim is painted I either remove the trim, fix the wall and reinstall the trim, or I caulk it.
Different situations call for different solutions. From the looks of that one, I'd caulk it. Caulk is rubbery for a reason. :o)
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Edited 4/5/2006 4:01 pm by Ted W.
Edited 4/5/2006 4:05 pm by Ted W.
I don't know. I have seen some GOdd aweful looking caulk. I saw a stair skirt board with a caulked edge along the wall. Looked fine after paint. Six months later all cracked away from the wall. Now perhaps teh skirtboard could have been fastened to the wall better, but it obviously moved and looked like crapp.
The skirt board was loose, or maybe the stairs were bouncy, something was moving more than it shoulda been. And if nice, flexible caulk is going to loosen up from movement, what do you think brittle grout will do? For that matter, if you use something brittle, why not use Durobond 90 (or 45 or 20 or 300, whatever)? As for sanded caulk, it's still caulk, just sandy textured. Now there's something that will look bad to all the people crawling around on the floor scrutinizing the underside of the chair rail.
But don't take my word for it. I was wrong once and it could happen again.
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Edited 4/7/2006 9:06 am by Ted W.
rubber is for bathrooms not dinnering rooms. LOL!
I had that problem where one wall of the house seems to have pushed out a bit, so there are gaps in the top of the baseboard and the underside of some windows.
Anyway, we got a paintable caulk with a color as close to the woodwork as possible. For larger gaps, I pushed foam backer rod into the gap. Then I caulked. Then we came back with the wall color paint. It takes two people to do this, as one is constantly moving around and looking at how the results appear. The other one touches up with the paint to make everything look as good as possible.
Remember, this is all about apperances. There are no structural issues. So get good lighting, and someone with a decent eye, and you'll be set.