Red stuff under plaster?
Sushi Fan
something odd. Beneath the top two very thin layers of plaster is another
layer that is dark red and smears a lot when wet.
Can anyone tell me what this red stuff is?
TIA,
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Nancy Tucker
Woman with a serious old-house jones.
Peter O'Shea
Plaster is applied in several coats. The first is called the brown coat,
then comes the scratch coat, then the finish coat. The brown coat is applied
to seep partially behind the lath, forming "keys" that lock the plaster in place.
It typically contains horsehair, which gives it resistance to cracking, and
also sand or other fillers, to reduce cost.
The scratch coat, as I understand it, was scratched to form an irregular surface
for the adhesion of the final coat. The final coat was the most pure, having
no horsehair or sand, so that the finish was perfectly smooth.
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Pete O'Shea Reading, MA
All opinions expressed are my own.
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Edward Ryan
a murder years ago. It kept coming back through the plaster and paint until
we had a priest exercise the house.
Good luck.
P.S. I wouldn't do any landscaping or basement remodeling until you have your
house checked out by a priest.
==========Sushi Fan, 8/28/95==========
Dave Lord
| ==========Edward Ryan, 8/29/95==========
|
| Probably blood. I had a similar situation and it turned out it
| was blood from
| a murder years ago. It kept coming back through the plaster and
| paint until
| we had a priest exercise the house.
Actually it's not good to exercise old houses because all that
moving around and deep breathing causes the plaster to
crack.
Dave
Alice A. Harman
turned out it was blood from a murder years ago. It kept coming back
through the plaster and paint until we had a priest exercise the house.
What kind of "exercise" did the priest do? Specifically, was it
aerobic or anaerobic? Once the house started to exercise, did the joints
get stronger? ;-)
Edward Ryan
hire a priest tio exercise the house. Priests are specially trained to
stretch and do warm up exercises to avoid damage to the house.
Most good priests will perform the exercism for a couple of 12 packs of beer
and a few bucks.
Ed
==========Dave Lord, 8/29/95==========
| ==========Edward Ryan, 8/29/95==========
|
| Probably blood. I had a similar situation and it turned out it
| was blood from
| a murder years ago. It kept coming back through the plaster and
| paint until
| we had a priest exercise the house.
Actually it's not good to exercise old houses because all that
Sushi Fan
peter...@analog.com writes:
>It typically contains horsehair, which gives it resistance to cracking,
>and also sand or other fillers, to reduce cost.
Then David Peritt <Peri...@a1.mscf.upenn.edu> wrote:
>>I am not sure animal hair was used in 92 year old victorian homes. You
>>see tons of it in older homes though. I have a 1904 vicotorian which is
>>just plaster.
Yup, we've got horsehair plaster in our 1903 San Francisco house -- pulled
down chunks of it from the kitchen walls when we patched a section. Lots
of long, tough horsehairs.
David Peritt
peter...@analog.com writes:
>It typically contains horsehair, which gives it resistance to cracking,
and
>also sand or other fillers, to reduce cost.
na8130d00-Kardaras
>something odd. Beneath the top two very thin layers of plaster is another
>layer that is dark red and smears a lot when wet.
>
>Can anyone tell me what this red stuff is?
>
I'd bet that you have hit a layer of calcimine. Your description sounds
like the color we found in my parent's house under 3 layers of wallpaper. The
house was built in 1917, and the calcimine was directly on the plaster. The
'two very thin layers of plaster' sounds like skim coats to cover it up.
If it is calcimine, what to do next depends on how you intend to finish the
walls. If you are going to panel the walls, then ignore the calcimine.
If you're going to paint, you have problems, as paint (and maybe present-day
wallpaper) will not adhere to calcimine at all.
After scrubbing the walls to remove the calcimine (I used steel wool once,
Spic 'n' Span another time), you have to seal the plaster. We used shellac in
1965, Kilz in 1991 - both worked fine. If you either don't remove the
calcimine OR don't seal the walls, paint will flake off in a few days.
Good luck.
- Chris Kardaras
c.j.ka...@att.com
Peter O'Shea
>In article <1995Aug29.1...@analog.com> Peter O'Shea,
>peter...@analog.com writes:
>>It typically contains horsehair, which gives it resistance to cracking,
>>and also sand or other fillers, to reduce cost.
>
>>>see tons of it in older homes though. I have a 1904 vicotorian which is
>>>just plaster.
>
>down chunks of it from the kitchen walls when we patched a section. Lots
>of long, tough horsehairs.
>
>------------------------
>Nancy Tucker
>Woman with a serious old-house jones.
I write further:
I just finished taking down a 1920's wall that a previous owner had added to
my 1877 stick-style victorian. The plasterer used animal hair as a binder.
Peter O'Shea
Reading, MA
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