How we make our California Color Finish.
The formula is:
6 color packs
2 94 lb. bags white portland
4 100 lb. bags white silica sand
1/2 50 lb. bag lime.
This is the dry mix
The wet mix is below:
How we make our wet mix.
The dry mix above is shoveled into
buckets of our wet mix.
The wet mix is half and half acrylic bonder and water.
The bonder is used for color retention, but does a lot
more. In addition, it adds incredible bonding strength,
flexibility (crack resistence), and more than doubles
the compressive strength of the mortar.
It is a good idea to use acrylic 100% ,that is, no water,
for concrete coating.
What is a float finish ?
A float finish is a flat texture,
with a raised sandy texture.
It is the most popular texture we do.
Below shows applying the finish coat,
(of course, before it is floated):
The finish is applied in two steps,
A scratch coat and a double-up, or skim coat.
Note how that scratch coat is floated
after the scratch coat.
How to mix mortar for the cement brown coat.
The formula here is:
40 shovels masonry sand.
2 94 lb. bags portland cement.
1/2 50 lb. bag of lime.
One 5 gallon bucket is 5 shovel fulls.
A five gallon bucket is approximately one cubic foot.
A bag of portland is two cubic feet, so I guess
you can say this is a 2:1 mix, sand:cement by volume
Here is our secret formula for pebble dash:
Can you keep a secret ?
Nothing to do with plastering, but I wanted to show my videos of
the zip line tour at Ace Adventure
Center in West Virginia. This is one of I think 9 runs
through the
beautiful New River Gorge in West Virginia