Thread: What is "white set"?

Its just another terminology/name for white plaster.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

It is also known as hard finish plaster, and takes some experience to use. It is mixed with lime and trowelled on, flicked with water as it sets and continuously trowelled.It really is a job for the pros.

Tools

What is the mix between the plaster and lime? What is the type of plaster and lime? Is it easy to work once dried like a skim coat? Why is it used instead of say a base coat and a skim coat?

Whiteset gives a superior finish to basecoat/topcoat. It's much harder and the trowelling polishes the plaster and gives it a very hard, dense and durable finish.

Mick

"white set" is usually used over cement render.

"Boral hard plaster" is the most popular brand with the solid plasterers.

I would not use this over plasterboard. The moisture sucks out very quickly on plasterboard it would be very difficult to use.

Solid plasterers dampen down the render before applying hard plaster, this helps it bond and stops the moisture sucking out of it to quick. I agree with tools, to get a good finish get a solid plasterer in. I don't even attempt using hard plaster myself. Not because the action of trowlling is so hard it is getting used to to setting time and knowing how much you can finish in a mix etc. It can set very fast an if you get caught with too much on the wall and it set on you, you will have a right mess.

As plasterboard has more flex if bumped etc hard plaster over board would be prone to craze cracking I would think.

for those who want a level 5 finish on plasterboard I suggest using top coat to skim the entire wall. Skim coat is used in the UK to set over plasterboard. I have never used it so I cant comment on how it sets etc compared to hard plaster.

Cheers

I am having all sort of trouble matching patching on cement rendered walls to the original finish that was achieved back in the 70's.

Basically I want to patch holes fix up water damage and fill cracks that have developed.

Up to now I have used cement render for the major holes and where render has seperated from brick. When this surface is painted it certainly doesn't the surrounding surface with is very obvious that it is cement render painted.

Given this result I started using top coat and giving it a very fine skim coat. This gets rid of the cement render painted look but now have a problem that these areas are much smoother than the surrounding areas.

So what's the answer? Should I be using this hard plaster instead to patch the walls? Where can I find info related to its use?

TIA