Howdy folks, kirk, and Jason are here with kirk Giordano plastering. Today I'm in my backyard.
I want to do something a little bit different I want to show this fella Milton some samples.
I'll tell you how I got to meet Milton. His wife actually called
my house, Hallie, and she said Kirk, we watch everything you do. It's my husband's birthday
today. Could you do us a favor and do a birthday video and say happy birthday?
I thought, no, but I called him and said, "hey Milton, happy birthday."
I thought that's one of the sweetest things for somebody to call us and say, hey, we watch what you do can you do, Can you give my husband a shout out for his birthday?. I thought,
man, my next girl, I want her to have that kind of heart, that kind of soul depth & love.
I just thought it was wonderful, so I'm going to do that.
Any of you guys watch what we do for the last 11 years, 900 videos, or so you'll say, well Kirk,
you're already married, but no, she was my girlfriend and that's was over a year ago, long past.
I wish her well. It's kind of like, Janice Joplin said in that song,
https://youtu.be/p7lfYJK-9Wg/ "Bobby McGee," she's searching
for that home, and I hope she finds it! Freedoms, just another word for nothin,
left to lose, nothin, it ain't nothin, honey, if it ain't free!
Anyway, that's yesterday's old newspapers. Today, I just want to talk about
this wonderful lady Hallie and her words that her husband said, he said." Kirk,
I'm parging my back wall, and this is that." I called him, and he says well,
I'm parging my back wall. I said parging, huh?
That reminded me of what old man whitey said to me about 35 years ago.
When I asked, "Hey, "Whitey,"
This guy, "whitey" was about 60-65, I was about 20. To me, he looked older than Moses, he looked
like 900, but anyway, I said, "Hey Whittey, are we going to be doing any parging today?"
He said, boy, what do you know about parging? And I said, well, we put the cement over
stuff. I didn't want to say, man, I don't know anything about parging,
because I felt stupid, because, old man, Whitey, knew everything he was a genius with plastering.
He says, let's get started. You mix me some mud and I'll tell you about parging.
so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell you guys about parging, because
too many people call me and say, I want a parge this is that's, that's the wrong terminology.
I'll explain to you what parging means, but first, I'm going to answer Milton's question about
lime plaster lime base coats and lime finish coats. It's easy to understand, guys. If you understand the
terminology, what I'm about to show you, we're going to get a mix, and we'll go from there.
All right, guys, Jayson, just mixed me up some base coat. I'm going to explain something about parging or white coating because too many people have the same question.
I asked about it when I was 20, that was that 40 years ago.
Okay, you have base coats. These are base coats, it's lime plaster.
It's called veneer lime plaster. "veneer" just means, it has nothing
to do with the minerals guys, "veneer" means a single application, a thin layer
like veneer teeth, a thin layer, that's all. Now you have finished materials, like say
they have an imperial base and imperial finish. They have an imperial
diamond base and a diamond finish coat. The finish coats are lime plaster also. When it says veneer finish, all that means is a thin layer. They should really remove that word veneer.
They just should put Lime base coat, or they should put Lime finish. That's what it is.
USG makes both of these. When you're working in hospitals and schools, this is important, guys.
you do apply a base coat, and then you do a finished coat. I'm going to explain that when you're working as
homeowners or do guys or do-it-yourselfers. You don't have to do that, but there's is a reason to do that.
I'm going to explain that reason, but before I do, I want to
answer this parging question. Because, old man, Whitey had told me, what it means.
I was working with, old man Whitey, we were on the docks in San Francisco.
What we would do is transform the front of the restaurants into beautiful works of art.
Back then, they used to be the old train stations to receive goods, but now they're
all fancy restaurants. As I'd had nothing to do, after mixing, as old man Whitey was really slow. I'd mix and then sit there for like three hours, rambling to him and he'd say
can't you find something to do? "I said,
you want me to help you?" He said no, no. I said, well, I got nothing to do, then.
So he was telling me, he says, Kirk, what you what you're asking me is parging,
that got nothing to do with the realities of today. I said, well, explain it to me, so I'm gonna give
you a quick explanation of what he meant. You take either one of these right here,
and you go back five thousand ten thousand years or two thousand a thousand years ago.
What you do is you heat it up Limestones, where did they heat it up? They didn't have kilns they had
pots, as they knew how to make metal way back in the, Roman days as they had swords, you have a pot or
a hole. So you put limestone in it, heat it up to about 1600 degrees, and yes, you can do that.
It turns into a slake lime, a slake putty, then you take that slake lime, like this right here.
This is what happens. This is hydraulic Lime. When you add water to it, either one of these powders
forms a hydraulic action and turns it right back to what it was what was. It was limestone.
So okay, you take a house, now your walls are made of, I mean they didn't have sawmills where
you can get your perfect two by fours, guys we're spoiled today, they had walls that were made up of branches,
tree branches, guys, they just used branches, like walls. Now you would take this right here you could take
the lime finish or lime base it didn't matter, you would put some sand in it if there were huge holes.
Then you painted that lime on, the idea was, if you painted that
over the branches, the bricks, the blocks, the rocks, the stones, the dirt, the leaves, whatever you used for walls.
You do that because limestone will resort back to itself. Thereby
it will not allow spiders, parasites, rats can't chew through this stuff any rodents can't get in.
You know the walls around your house that's parging! Thus when you parge,
it's not pretty guys, it's not made to be pretty, parging is made for usefulness.
That is to keep all the rodents out of your house, keep bacteria, out of your house,
keep the wood from decaying. The rain would rot the wood in a matter of one season.
So with lime added, it would last season after season after season because lime is permeable.
Meaning water gets through, it's self-healing, so that's basically what parging really is, guys.
If you're purging, say branches with big holes, you put a lot of sand in it or whatever additive
you have at your resources. If you don't have a beach,
you go to a lake, you don't have a lake, you go to a rock quarry, and you put that in here.
then you paint it on your walls. That will preserve the house walls.
You do not want parasites, mosquitoes, ticks, and all that crap going through the walls.
Okay, now what's that got to do with what I'm about to show here?
Nothing, but people mistake that word, they say I'm going to page my walls and I hear it, it reminds me of what, old man, Whitey, explained to me 35 years ago. He'd say,
"Kirk, you're overthinking this. It's not what you think," Whitey would say, "Kirk,
"you have just enough of an idea to think you're right, but not enough information to know you're wrong!"
I thought I like that. Okay, anyway, for Milton
now, since your lovely wife Hallie had the the incentive to call us, which we appreciate,
I thought that's so sweet. I'll show you right now, this is a base coat. What is base coat got sand in it silica, usually fine sand, fine sand, okay just to prove a point, guys, if
you're going over sheetrock and anything gu like that.
These little lines here are just that. It means the base coat isn't 100%
mixed is that a problem? No, that's not a problem.
I can see where it's a little clumpy. That's got nothing to do with reality
or anything to do with this video. We don't worry about the
clumps. That is not what this video is about. Okay, now
what I did for Hallie is since I was so taken by her charm, when she said
we watch everything you do. I thought that's just so sweet, so what I did was I went out to home depot. I bought two sheets
of sheetrock. It's quarter-inch sheetrock because I didn't want to lift it, if it was cumbersome, so
this is just one sheet, I actually have two more sheets right there, but that's for more samples.
I guess if it's necessary anyway, so here's the difference between a hospital and a school, or
you guys, okay as I don't want to dwell on getting the imperfections out because I'll
be there forever. So, that's not the point of this video. The point is now this is a base
coat this base coat is over, see there's pink stuff that's "plaster Weld," it's pink,
and exterior "Weld Crete" bonding agent is blue. So see that pink roller, I rolled those
a couple of days ago and uh that pink stuff just means, yeah this has to adhere to something, it'll also adhere to the blue board. But that's another boring story. It'll
adhere to any painted surface or surface that has been painted with
a bonding agent "Plaster-Weld, but because plaster world is not sold anywhere except your
nearest plastering yards you would have to google, plastering yards near, or go to home depot get this
quikrete, quikrete wrote the book on bonding agents and stucco products.
Okay what I was going to get at now is this is a base coat, after 15 minutes this base coat
in the sun right here is about 95 it's still early uh this is going to dry it's going to
you'll see it dry and the color will change. now if you don't put on a base coat or if you just
use a base coat understand this you will get a sandy type finish if you look at this and this
is considered a smooth trowel finish guys, okay a smooth trowel finishes, but it looks a little sandy.
Why does it look a little sandy because it's got silica sand in the base coat. So if you were just
I was going to say parge your walls, if you were just putting this on your basement walls
or your house walls your bathroom kitchen you can do just that,
and steel troweled it. If you steel troweled once, you can leave that alone,
of course, you can make it a little prettier than that or you could float it that just means
you take not your dish sponge but a stucco sponge with a handle and you bring out the sand,
it's called bringing out the sand you take this sponge float and you just go like this,
now that that makes it pretty and it puts some variations lines I mean you could put
you could make it however you want guys, if you have a crazy imagination like yours truly.
You could make circles, you can do whatever you want, guys, but anyway, if you have a base coat
and why again is the base coat and finish coat
sort of necessary, because they're used in hospitals and schools.
You use it for hospitals and schools, you play by the rules, guys, you don't
stretch it like what I'm doing, can you just do that on your bathroom walls or your kitchen
walls basement walls, any walls, yes. If done there, there are no rules,
so you've got to put two-three four coats on it. You can do that now. If I would apply the
plaster coat over this, which is right here, can I just do a plaster coat on this?
Yes, I can. I've coated a lot of walls without going to the base coat, but here's the ticket,
guys, okay, say you're putting a finish coat over this; I was going to do it,
but I might just show you or explain it. If you're putting a finish coat over this
all right now, that finish coat has no sand. This got silica sand, so if you put it on, you put it
on, say a sixteenth of an inch or an eighth, which is kind of heavy, but sometimes I put it on a
half-inch to disguise or cover up imperfections. Can you do that?
Yes, you can. Can you do it in hospitals and schools? No, you can't. So you
got to play by their rules. Here's why the base coat is
kind of specked out and necessary and or important to you guys, okay, so I put a finish coat over
this right now. It's one-eighth of an inch thick. I sit around and drink a beer, relax, think about stuff
that doesn't amount to nothing and all of a sudden, I go, and I want to make it really pretty.
I want to steel trowel it, I want to smooth it down like a baby's butt or like glass.
Okay, I would take my trowel, and of course, we wet the trowel now.
Just say, for example, I have the base coat on or the finish coat on here, and I have a sixteenth an
eighth a quarter-inch an inch on it. Here's what happens. This is why they say put a base coat
when you put a finished plaster over a painted surface and or sheetrock that has been
properly prepped, and that just means, a bonding agent you got that that finished
coat on and you're thinking, wow that's pretty then you go to steel troweling, you're going.
And all of a sudden, it's starting to bubble, it's or starting to blister
it's starting to separate. So why is it doing that guys, it's separating because the average person
just doesn't know you only hit it once or twice? You don't play with it, see because if I'm playing
with it and I'm trying to, I'm, thinking wow, because I'm using a square child now.
If I'm using a square trowel, making lines all over, I'm going back and forth back and forth,
trying to get those lines out. Good luck, you'll never do it.
With this trowel, you close your eyes and do it easy because this is straight,
just the ends are arcked, that's it, so the more you play with just a finish coat over
a plaster surface that's been painted or over sheetrock,
you're going to separate it from the base coat. Because it doesn't have this to stick to
permanently, this in 15 minutes will be dry and then if I were to put a finish coat over this now,
what I would do is I mist it, I misted it with a Hudson sprayer a felt brush a float or any kind of
brush I could mist it with, this you know just wet it because the two then become mechanical.
A mechanical bond is the strongest bond there is. You take a finish coat material like so,
and you put it over a base coat like so, and it's wet or mists the two suck up and
when they suck up like that's permanent. So even if we go back to the example of
that a sixteenth or an eighth to a quarter or even a half-inch here, and now you start
steel troweling it trying to make it look good, and you're using a square trowel unless you are
a 15-year applicator you're not going to make that wall look good.
I can't even hardly make it look good with a square trowel, so this one, you just go over it,
and you put water on it and bring it right back to life using the fat from the diamond.
fat means the extra lime and get it just right, guys it'll become perfect like glass, and again,
if you put it over this with the proper preparation, that means that's got to be wet
the two combined suction so when you guys call me and say hey, kirk, I did it, but it kept
blistering it kept separating from the walls that kept doing this it kept doing that, you're over
troweling it, or you didn't put a base coat on again, I just like to end this by saying, guys
You can do one coat, but you better know what you're doing. Ole, Kirk, knows what he's doing.
So I can tell you guys about it. Can you do it? I don't know I can.
But I've been doing this my whole life. Anyway, my name is Kirk, and Jason is on
the camera. We thank you guys for watching, and as usual, we'll see you guys at the next one.
All right, folks, we've reached the end of another video as always we thank you for watching.
If you enjoy what we're putting out for you guys, please like and subscribe to keep supporting us,
and as usual from the entire Giordano family, we'll see you on the next one.