All you need to know about Plasterers

Plastering is the only “trade” that Joe Soap (you!), will actually think you probably wont be able to get competent at…. by simply “having a go” one weekend.

Plumbing (you imagine) can be mastered…After all it’s just bits of pipe joined together in various ways and water can always be mopped up if you mess up.

Electrics wont even make a mess if you get it wrong. You can work in perfect safety if you turn everything off first and what’s the worst that can happen, a fuse will blow. So what?

You can even lay bricks with a bit of care, you’ll be a lot slower than a brickie of course but think of the money you will save.

Plastering though! Proper plastering I mean, (not using that creamy slop you buy in a plastic tub from one of the sheds), is just a tad more mysterious isn’t it? You don’t know what sort of plaster to use, do you? And why are there different types anyway? And what strength do you mix it to? There’s no tin with instructions on the back. You don’t even know if you add plaster to water or water to plaster do you?

Then supposing you manage to get some mixed up in a bucket (lets hope the bucket and the water was as clean as a whistle or you will have about a minute and a half to get the stuff spread on the wall before it “goes off”). Just how the heck do you actually get it on the wall? It’s a shame that floors aren’t plastered really, because you wont have the slightest problem getting the muck all over the boards and your shoes and for goodness sake…. don’t wear turn ups!

I don’t know how Henry VIII got on with his falcon but watching a novice (you) trying to put (and keep) plaster on his hawk ( hawk? hawk? what the heck is he talking about)? Then try to transfer it to his trowel and then spread it onto the wall…. can be a very jolly affair indeed.

It’s also surprising how many times that same frustrated novice will refer to the “falcon” process he is attempting…. so it’s best to keep small children and the fair sex well out of earshot for the first week or so!

Now watch “the spreads” doing it. Like bloody ballet dancers they are. In one effortlessly graceful swooping curve of humanity, they transfer the muck from spot, to hawk, to wall, then with just the right amount of attention….. (“Stop playing with it lad” they were told as young apprentices… which is good advice to give any impressionable young whipper snapper in my view. I wish someone had told me when I was about 35!) Where was I? Oh yes…. With just the right amount of attention, they create a beautifully smooth, glasslike finish. It’s a shame to paint it really.

Believe me, you wont be able to do it! It’s all about processes and timing and knowing when to have a cup of tea and when to get a move on. And you don’t really want to spend a week facing a wall do you? Plasterers are used to it, they perfected the art in prep school when their housemaster stood them there for failing to master their Latin declentions.

I came, I saw, I plastered!