Finally, Plaster.

I’ve got walls! It feels good too. I got the scratch coat on all the bathroom walls today. It took about 3 hours. I think I could have done it in under 2 if I had someone to mix plaster while I troweled it on.

There was nothing too exciting about the plastering today. It went well. I did notice a few things that might be helpful to any would-be plasterers out there. In the great Plaster Repair PDF made by Dave from The Worley Place, he says to mix the plaster to a consistency of “Cake Batter but just a tad soupy”. I found this difficult to imagine because I’m not a baker. What is the consistency of cake batter? I made the first few batches of scratch coat too soupy. This was one of the reasons I think my Keys were so large.

I tried to come up with a better way to describe it. For me, I like it to be the consistency of warm peanut butter. That’s sounds good to me, but what if you’re allergic to peanuts, you’re probably thinking, “Warm peanut butter!? What the hell does that look like?” I ran in to similar problems with other analogies for consistency.

Soft shoe polish: shoe polish allergies
Soft serve ice cream: lactose intolerant
Squished cockroach innards: cockroach innards allergies

The list goes on. No matter what the analogy, someone will be left out. Then as I was mixing up a perfect batch of plaster the perfect analogy came to me as if by some unseen force. As I was mixing the plaster with my little 2-inch wide trowel, I thought to myself, “Wow, this is just a perfect batch of plaster”. As I scraped the bottom once more with the trowel I noticed how the deep valley I created in the pail looked kind of like when Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea in the movie The Ten Commandments. That’s when it came to me. This is the analogy everyone will understand. I mean, I’m an atheist and I’ve seen that scene dozens of time. It’s part of the collective consciousness.

So when you’re mixing your plaster for the scratch coat get it to where you can “Part The Red Sea” with your trowel and have smooth sides. The sides of the "sea" should be smooth, and maybe sag just a hair. If they flop in too much, the mix is too wet. If you get any cracks or breaks, the mix is too dry. Go Unto Thee And Be Like Moses...Or Charlton Heston, Which Ever Works Best. {Said in a loud, booming voice}.

Other helpful tips: Don’t put the pail of plaster at the base of the ladder where you can step in it. I’m not going to say how I know this is a good tip, you're going to have to trust me on this one. Also, don’t wear expensive Italian loafers when plastering. Trust me on this one as well.

And one last thought on the origins of plaster. I can’t shake the train of thought about how and when gypsum plaster became the preferred method to lime and sand plaster. It’s easy to see how drywall supplanted them all. It’s a quicker method. Quicker does not necessarily mean better, it’s just quicker. And for a professional, the quicker you can work, the more money you can make. That’s easy to see. There seems to be little difference in the methods for the two types of plaster, though. So why the switch. Then it dawned on me: Marketing! The great un-equalizer.

I’m sure that’s the missing link. US Gypsum had a product that they wanted to move. Plasterers that used lime plaster did not buy US Gypsum plaster. It was probably through a series of clever marketing campaigns, discounted merchandise to get shelf space, and maybe some threats and intimidation that they were able to get there product in to the hands of more and more plasters. Lime was used in enough of the other building trades that the use of lime in plaster could have lost the focus of the lime producers for a short enough period that the switch was made among plasterers, and even more importantly, those that sold products to plasterers. Or maybe the lime producers were cocky and assumed they could never lose the market. A fatal mistake for many industries though out the ages.

The old saying goes, Build a better mouse trap and the world will beat a path to your door. A modern twist on that could be, Market your mouse trap better, and you can beat your own path.

Tomorrow: The Brown Coat