TakCoat

Now that the ceiling and wall patches have cured, back to finishing up with a full coat of TakCoat on the rest of the bathroom. TakCoat is a product from limeworks.us that provides a basecoat without having to use any PlasterWeld to adhere to a surface. As part of the TakCoat, I’m also going to embed meshes into the plaster to cover up all of the cracks on the walls and ceiling.

Prepping the meshes.

I learned about the full mesh approach from taking the plastering class at limework.us. Their argument was that using a full mesh would save time and provide protection as opposed to cutting mesh to fit over cracks.

I start with the ceiling and cut up a some sections of mesh. Applying the TakCoat to the ceiling is a little tricky because unlike the wall from last time, the ceiling is smooth plaster. The TakCoat doesn’t adhere as well as I’d think and I have to be careful when working the material that I don’t just scrape it off the ceiling. Hopefully when it dries, the suction will help bond the new plaster to the ceiling. It takes forever to finish the ceiling because I’ve never worked above my head before and also cutting the meshes is tedious. The meshes are slightly adhesive so you can’t just peel off a section. You have to carefully unfurl the mesh or you will rip the mesh.

With the ceiling finished, I move to the walls. I get everything covered but I definitely need to change my workflow. I tend to mix up only a small amount of TakCoat at a time. Mostly because I’m scared that unfurling a section of mesh will take me a long time so I don’t want to exceed the 1 hour limit on using TakCoat after mixed. So I waste a good amount of time mixing new batches of plaster and unspooling mesh. Eventually I get everything done over a period of 2 days.

Making my way down the room with TakCoat.

Finished TakCoat.

While finishing up on the first day, I notice some discomfort on my hands and arms. In the past I’ve had some slight sensitivity on my hands from the Master of Plaster product, but didn’t pay it too much attention. Plaster is akaline so it is caustic to skin. In this case I had left blobs of TakCoat to dry on my forearms and figertips. After I cleaned them off it felt and looked like I had a bad sunburn.

Alkaline burns.

Over the next few hours, the burns continue to develop. I read that alkaline burns penetrate flesh deeper than acid burns and these definitely feel painful down to the bone.

Blistering/scabbing from the burns.