Perfecting Plaster

On November 11, plasterer Rob Romano, of David Cook Plaster Co., and Bill Drakeley, WU cofounder, defined successful plaster installation in a lively Wolfpack Webinar Wednesdays presentation. The discussion was part of WU’s ongoing effort to provide basic, as well as advanced, technical instruction for watershape builders and subcontractors.

“It’s a topic you can talk about for days and never run out of things to say,” notes Bill Drakeley in his introduction to CON 3684: Essential Pool Plastering Techniques. Despite the enormity of the topic. “It sounds simple enough, but if you’re not familiar with some of the nuances of the installation process, you can wind up with a failed project and a very unhappy client.”

Drakeley and Rob Romano did their best to cover the big points in the hour-long presentation, which they described pool plaster in its intended usage and basic applications, along with a look at typical problem areas during plaster application.

This was the second webinar featuring Drakeley and Romano talking about plaster issues. The first time, they took the audience on a deep dive into substrate preparation, one of the issues that spells the difference between a successful plaster job and one that is doomed to fail.

Drawing on their decades of experience, and standards established by organizations such as the National Plasterers Council, the pair delved deep into what makes the difference between great-looking surfaces that last indefinitely, to those destined to fail prematurely.

“This time we’re taking the next step and looking at plaster applications,” Drakeley explains. “We want to define a basic process of what you need to do and why.”

Learning outcomes for the course include:

• Propose basic plastering principles to concrete (shotcrete) pool vessels

• Create and/or set up a duplicatable sequence of plaster installation that applicators can reference

• Analyze, distinguish and differentiate between quality substrate surfaces and problem areas

• Define basic plaster against and in contrast to aggregate or pebble surface applications

The presentation included detailed discussions of proper mix design, application techniques, common mistakes and some of the fine points of working with exposed and polished-aggregate surfaces.

To watch the video, click here.

To watch the pair’s first video on substrate preparation, click here.