Patching and Plastering - Brown coat Mistake - I think

HI;

Well, I made some good progress today, but I think I made a mistake. I got the ceiling worked out pretty nice and flat overall with base coat.

I didn't get the ceiling brushed out before it set, so now the ceiling is troweled fairly smooth
I wasn't sure if I should brush it before the thin Keenes Finish coat, but now I went back and read stuff again, and now I think I really should have. But it is almost completely set now, so it is too late to brush.

So do I need to go back and do another base coat while the base is nice and wet(not positive if it will adhere without the keying in the basecoat)? or should I glue the entire ceiling again with plasterweld?

Thanks very much,

Jamie

Try this: Scrape the plaster with your trowel or something and see if you can open it up a little. If so then do that and sweep the crumbs off and you are good to go.

Now are you putting a sand finish on this? If so I think if you grind the first pass of finish in real well and get a little mechanical bond then double it up and float.

If this is too hard to do the first and if you don
t think the second will work then I guess yes, give it a coat of bonding agent and spread on another tight coat of base and brush it.

I wish I knew just how smooth it is. You might be just fine.

Try this: Scrape the plaster with your trowel or something and see if you can open it up a little. If so then do that and sweep the crumbs off and you are good to go.

Now are you putting a sand finish on this? If so I think if you grind the first pass of finish in real well and get a little mechanical bond then double it up and float.

If this is too hard to do the first and if you don
t think the second will work then I guess yes, give it a coat of bonding agent and spread on another tight coat of base and brush it.

I wish I knew just how smooth it is. You might be just fine.

HI

It's not real smooth, I didn't trowel it out with water, just with the plaster. I will go take a few close up photos right now and post them.

Thanks
Jamie

It's pretty darn hard, this Kal-kote seems to get pretty hard, I try a few other areas in a second and see if I can scratch any of it. Edit: In some areas I can make a very tiny scratch with heavy pressure with the corner of a trowel, it would take hours to scratch up the surface with how hard it is right now.

To answer your question about the finish, since this is the kitchen, I was thinking about doing just a hard smooth finish (and using the sand finish in the other rooms in my home I am plastering) with Keenes, but I am not sure how hard it is going to be to do this and make it look good. I'm confident from the tests that I will be able to get the sand finish to work. I would hope I can do a smooth keenes finish, since it gives me a long time to work it smooth, but I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/1.JPG
http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/2.JPG
http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/3.JPG
http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/1.JPG
http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/4.JPG
http://www.dolanhosting.net/jamiedolan/plaster/4-15/5.JPG

Thanks
Jamie

I think you are OK. I tried to look at your pictures last night and the site was down. Sorry for the delay. Have you tried it yet?
Grind in a first pass with plenty of pressure the double it up. If perchance it peels off when you try to double it up then it must be too slick but it doesn't look like it from the photos.

I think you are OK. I tried to look at your pictures last night and the site was down. Sorry for the delay. Have you tried it yet?
Grind in a first pass with plenty of pressure the double it up. If perchance it peels off when you try to double it up then it must be too slick but it doesn't look like it from the photos.

HI;
Thanks for taking a look at the photos. I decide to mix up some Keenes and Lime and apply it to a test board with a Kal-Kote base on it. (to see how it adhered and to see how well I could drawn out a nice smooth finish) I did it late this afternoon and it isn't completely set yet, but I was able to trowel the keens out nice and smooth and it seems to have adhered to the test board, which was not brushed (but also was not troweled smooth at all). So I will try the ceiling as you suggested and see if it bites in.

I'd like to put a bit more base on the ceiling in an area that is low, if I don't have a well defined boundry to the areas I am working, do I pretty much need to coat the entire ceiling all at once? I know if it was more like a patch, I could just stop clean at the edges, but this I more have to feather out a bit, so I suspect it is going to be best to recoat the entire ceiling with base. I would just assume not re coat much of it, if it can be avoided.

How long / often do you go back and trowel out your keenes durring the set? I put it on, then went back a couple hours later and worked it out nice and smooth with just a few sprays of water. It isn't set yet, should I be still working it some all the way through the set or is it fine the way I did it? (I know I read you made a comment in one of your old posts where you mentioned that a finish coat needs to be troweled through the set, but I think you were talking about something other than keenes, so I don't know if that applies to keenes at all).

I did not realize early on when I started this project that I really need to apply a pretty good amount of pressure with my trowel, especially when scratching in the first tight coat. When I did that first wall with keenes, I strongly suspect that I did not trowel it in hard enough (densify the surface if that is the correct term) and that may have been a big part of why that first try failed (didn't bond and cracked). I think my test board will setup by morning and I think it will look nice... (I'm just not positive if I should try and trowel it anymore or just leave it alone)

Thanks again,
Jamie

No, you don't need to trowel it constantly but it should tighten up after a while and you want to trowel it as it gets harder. Just as it sets you should trowel it one last time and polish it so it shines.

I don't know why Keenes works the way it does but it is the only gypsum product that can be retempered and what you are doing every time you wet it and trowel it is soften it up, the rough equivalent of retempering it on the wall. That is why you put something in it to kick off the set but that usually means that as it sets it reaches a state where you can't and don't retemper it again .