Bag finish

Ask the pros- October, 2001
By Reggie Bullard


 







Bag finish
love your site! And agree with you on the EIFS garbage wholeheartedly. Found you when an employee asked what I meant by "bag finish". I explained andthen wanted a more technical answer for our specifications. A google search
uncovered you. As we are practically neighbors (we're in Clarendon) I hope our paths will cross in the field.

There are lots of varieties of bag finishes on old houses in the Washington area. 

The old plasterers I used to work with used to carry burlap bags to the job years ago to make floats. They didn't have rubber floats back then, so they 
tied burlap to an old trowel or wood float for a float finish or to 
float their basecoat. 

These were called croaker sacks in Richmond because they brought fish
to the market in burlap bags, so the empty bags were free. 

Patterns were made by putting mortar in the bags and smacking the wall, dipping the bag in water, dipping the bag in mortar, or a variety of ways depending on the imagination. I still do this stuff the way it was described to  me by old plasterers to match existing patterns.

See this month's column for more on bag finishes

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