Talk:Plasterwork

Ye olde talk
This article is essentially a copy of the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article on Plasterwork. It contains a lot of technical details that may no longer be accurate or relevant. It should probably be rewritten to remove out-dated references and add current information, or perhaps merged into the Plaster article. -- Davnor 18:37, 5 April 2006 (UTC) A good idea is to include information about plastering tools.
 * I do not agree about merging. Plaster and plasterwork are two different things.
 * I think all aspecs of plastering should be left in place to give a description of the history and then new material added and merged to the modern day. Ronmartens

This idea, that the 11th edition of Brittanica needs updating, changing or editing must be once and for all erased.

A craft such as plastering or plasterwork (stucco) has not changed or improved since the late 19th century, it has declined and been mostly replaced by plasterboard that is finished with one-coat plaster.

Not only has plastering declined and been replaced by plasterboard, and stucco by polystyrene, encyclopdias have too.

The best encyclopedia in the world is the 1911 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Since that time all subsequent editions are worse, and articles shorter and contain less information according to:

www.1911encylopedia.org/LoveToKnow_1911:Explanation.

So the basic idea in this comment (which needs to be erased, not refuted) - that everything - crafts and all written information gets better as time goes by is wrong. Leave well alone. If you want to do oil painting like the Dutch masters, you do not use modern pigments, you need 16th century technology. Likewise for plastering and plasterwork, it has not improved since the Renaissance.

No, there are no out of date references that need removing. Plastering was around with the Romans.

No one has bettered the techniques for making Japanese Samurai swords either. They do not need updating either.

You will save a lot of people a lot of time by striking out this ignorant comment. It is creating a lot of unnecessary work for people having to refute it again and again.

17:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC) Plaster is a material

Plasterwork is the adjective? Anyhoo this article is more accurate than a 'ARCHITECTURE EXPERT' may provide or have knowledge. Some areas appear a little verbose such as Labourers tasks. The article needs breaking up into more defined plastering or plasterwork types with separate pages.

Reference to WA cement internal rendering is actually referred to as 'solid plastering'. WA has over 90% solid plastering as it is sandy country making double brick cheap and soil movement low

Please add Dado cement rendering to the article. Thanks, Autogenius

The issue with citing sources is the technology doesnt come in a book — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.207.56 (talk) 07:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Speaking as a handy man in the U.S. in 2017, I can tell you that the article, as it is, provides not only historic interest, it also practical, as the buildings I work on are generally a century old, and built with the techniques described here. If the article contained only current methods, it would not help me to understand the construction methods I most often encounter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.35.240.182 (talk) 06:35, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

tools of the trade and modern technique

 * PPS well i wrote it but it's ugly :) --Bloodkith (talk) 06:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Needs work
The article is very Eurocentric. Very little of the methods sections applies to Australia and all the brand names are British? For example my father was the first here to use a drill to mix plaster (in 1972 and he had to make his own mixing attachment because none were available here) and it didn't catch on. I prefered mixing it in a wheelbarrow with a shovel because it gave larger quantities with less chance of lumping so using a drill was generally reserved for a labourer only needing to supply a single tradesmen. We use only bright red sand. Lathing is virtually unknown here with almost all work on concrete or brick. Hair is never used. The "two main methods" of interior plastering are not done by tradesmen here. The first is not considered plasterwork and is done by the labourers (called gyprockers) who install the sheet rock or even by the carpenters who erect the walls they are attached to and Veneer plastering is never done at all. Three coat work is the standard for all work. Plasterer and labourer tasks are strictly segregated ie: no plasterer is allowed to clean up anything but his own tools. The list goes on. I'd do some rewording myself but I have not been in the industry for many years and have no idea what has changed. Wayne (talk) 17:59, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree very much. I'd have a go from a UK perspective but as this is a international reference site, my terminology would be different than others. I've just had to look up 'Kal-Kote' so the US-centric article is rather confusing to non-US or non-australian readers.

Regards the duties of plasters and their labourers: wouldn't that be an area by area or nation by nation (continent by continent) thing? I appreciate what the author has tried to do but I think that bit maybe should have been omitted as shouldn't the article describe the job and how it's done and not who does what. [Don't Spanish plasterers use some sort of oval-ish shallow bucket with handles that folds over along with something like a bricklayers trowel and they scoop the material out of the 'dish' and fling it at the wall? They then scrape it back when it (rapidly) sets?]

I also think the article also needs to address what is historic materials and practices from the modern. The section on 'Laths', while good, doesn't impart the knowlwdge about improvement plasterboard brought.

Thinking about it, to describe 'Plastering' as a process would be be done via a historic timeline approach describing the materials used from the pyramids to modern day epoxy and/or polymer coatings. A writer should stick to basic ingredients and practices and stay away from tradenames, plasterboard would be plasterboard and gypsum undercoat and finishing coat likewise. Sand, cement lime, etc, need no explaining. It would then be a case of describing when you'd use how many coats of 'x' when doing 'y' before finishing the job by giving it a coat of finish plaster.

For the Lath/Plasterboard [Partition] section: couldn't the timeline be something like wattle & daub/basket > lath > Expanded Metal Lathing/various mesh > Plasterboard.

The undercoat timeline would be: Sand & lime > Sand & lime & hair > sand & lime & cement (+ hair?) > Gypum Undercoats, etc, etc.

I don't know if the above comes across OK but I'm tending to think make the article a story of plastering rather than a set list of sub headings with each one describing a material or process in isolation. I'm just thinking aloud... --Thru-a-hoop (talk) 23:35, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

we in western Australia are the last of a dying bread of plasterers and sadly we are being made to look bad by others who call themselves trades people they come here from all parts of the globe with inferior methods and standards of finish and have in recent times been bastardizing a fantastic trade and because of these (paperhangers and hairdressers. we of the old school are reluctant to pass on our knowledge(wrinkles)to anyone though we do to apprentices that wish to learn.... this article on plastering/plasterers reflects the status of our trade world wide and i will take great pleasure of changing it over time

This topic is confused by the splitting of plaster into concrete as well as plaster. Since concrete 'plastering' connotes an action or technique used for both materials in the plastic state, this is understandable, but we need to confine plaster to gypsum-based materials. As far as I know i came up with the composite of fiberglass mat and casting plasters, but it has become common. memphisdan (talk) 02:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC) Dan Spector Archicast Memphis, TN

0to just anyone —Preceding unsigned comment added by Masterplasterer (talk • contribs) 10:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

In the section on Laths, it is said that pine trees were introduced to Britain in the 19th century. Could this be removed, the Scot's pine has been in Britain for thousands of years? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.33.114.129 (talk) 12:35, 16 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The Scot's pine became effectively extinct outside of Scotland some 400 years ago and even in Scotland I dont think the forrests are commercially viable. Wayne (talk) 17:05, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Instruction manual
The article reads in part as an instruction manual, which violates WP:NOT: "Instruction manuals. While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places and things, an article should not read like a "how-to" style owner's manual, advice column (legal, medical or otherwise) or suggestion box. This includes tutorials, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes.Describing to the reader how people or things use or do something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use or do something is not" The section on laborer's tasks is the biggest problem, since it is in imperative mode, contrary to WP:NOT, full of "Do this. Then do that." It could describe how workers do something (or more accurately how they did it in 1911) and eliminate the "do this, do that" language. It is especially problematic that a reader can't tell which instructions are from old Britannica and which are someone's original research, since there are only TWO inline references ion the entire long article. Edison (talk) 16:42, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I found and read the 1911 Britannica article and it does not contain this "how to section" which thus appears to be original research. This may be someone's observations when doing plastering, or something they read in a book, but it must be referenced to a reliable source to remain in the article. Even then it should be less of an instruction list. Edison (talk) 14:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)