Cyril

Thank you kindly
Andy

like your site. sassy.

anyway, we often use 9,2, and 1 (9 sand, 2 (hydraulic)lime, 1 cement) or (13, 3, 1) which with a nice yellow sand, (you can get it here if you shop around), both give a nice creamy mix, structually sound, aswell as more permeable and flexible than a pure cement sand mix. creamy is the texture you’re after, whatever your mix. whether rendering or laying, laying wants to be a bit stiffer thou. if you want only to change the color not the physical properties, you can try getting hold of white cement (this keeps it closer to the color of the sand) back in the uk this costs a fortune (about £30 a bag – 25kg compared to £2.50 for opc) can’t imagine it’d be any cheaper here, since a lot of building materials are even more expensive.

for rendering outside you want sharp sand, and inside sharp on the scratch coat, or 50/50 to give it some body and soft sand on the top coat.

when you use cement use a feb agent, and if you are using cement in a render outside you need to use a frostproof additive. you can find both of these in builders merchants here.

i liked rendering with quick lime mortar (putty), it has a whole other feel, and on historic buildings it is nice to know you aren’t harming them but are building in harmony and sympathetically with the existing materials and are somehow connected to the past by the work you are doing. it being the same as the original work to the house maybe hundreds of years ago. even more so with carpentry.

on pure lime mixes, pozinans are a good idea, and if you are rendering you need to mix in some animal (pref. horse hair) old recipes also used to use cow shit as you would use feb in a cement mix to make it creamier still, which allows it to run better.

sack cloth, (heavy natural fiber cloth like hemp, it needs to breath, or you could use ground cover, as its permeable) is a good idea to cover your work to prevent it from, a drying out too fast, b, from getting washed out by rain, or c, frost damage. leave a couple of weeks between your scratch coat of render before you put the top coat on. whats good about natural fiber cloth is you can soak it to help prevent drying to quick which causes cracking (which you dont want).

something else that helps are good tools, sprung trowels, wether bricklaying or plastering trowels, pointing or gauging trowels. it does make the application that much easier and nicer. as does a good plastic hawk that doesn’t draw too quickly. ebay’s a great place for 2nd hnd tools with loads of life left in them, or new tools at a better budget than tool prices here in portugal, which i have to say are shockingly expensive and crap, to put not too fine a point on it. look out for spear and jackson, marshal town, and tyszack. honing down a gauging trowel out of rounded end, into a point is also worthwhile for repointing stone.

oh yeah and wear a long sleave shirt and a pair of gloves if you dont wanna get burned. nobody wears goggles thou, feel the burn.

http://www.nonscalable.com/?305477321

http://www.fradical.pt/

http://www.fradical.pt/