Hello folks, Kirk and Jason here with Kirk Giordano plastering. today on this instructional
video I'm going to show you guys how to use a diamond veneer finished plaster now I don't
have the luxury of going over one Big Easy wall and taking ten foot strokes to show you how easy
it is what we're doing is a fireplace and it's cut up like the fellow who did this he didn't
have the luxury of an easy big wall it's cut up so it takes time and it takes a lot of practice
with the tools technically I did this too but anyway diamond veneer finish you can buy this
at any of the hardware stores what it is it's a pretty dense durable plaster we use it in
the trades for mainly kitchens and bathrooms fireplaces or areas where you want some really
good strength and you can put colors in here too guys in fact we have a color in here it's
called french gray I'm gonna show how we apply this stuff it's really easy just to apply it
you want to go about an eighth inch thick can you go a quarter inch stick over she rock with
color you could I've done it many times myself but with this particular product you put it on
you put it on full enough because there's gonna be some troweling down and if it's if it's too thin
it sets on you too fast and you can't really bring it back to life so what I'm gonna do is
you just spread this out and I want to go at least an eighth of an inch could go three-eighths of an
inch I'm sorry I could go a quarter-inch you don't want to go too much thicker than that though when
doing this particular material sort of important to remember to put it on thick because you will
need that fat to play with later you put it on way too thin which some folks do then by
the time you go to bring it back to life it's gone and I'm using my because it's chimney is
so cut up all these little ins and outs and pockets and doors floor the its insert that
they're gonna place in there I'm using both of my trials here here we want to just again go
thick enough thick enough because when you mix this stuff technically you've got about oh I'd
say 1/2 cup our work with it so we mix it about 10 minutes ago so I got about 10 minutes to work
with this before it starts to darken and when it starts to darken that means it's getting hard
why do we play around so long because we had a lot of I had a lot of holidays on the fireplace
itself and I thought oh crap I better get those off before I start pulling my trial on it this
material is so thin that if you have say thinkers down here and you and you do like so you take your
trial you put it here and you pull up a clinker now that clinker is gonna follow the whole wall
which that's what took us a little bit of time nothing we can't handle now what I want to do
is do the hard part first we always start from the top work our way down just look at it and
give enough fat on this if it's too too hollow again guys you can't bring it back to life the
color we're using here is called french gray it is from the Habra color coke collection alright
now that I got that I'm gonna come underneath and get my lip kind of cut up what we're doing here
and we're working with quite a few fellows here today we're all stepping on each other's toes
right guys we not only got to do this they got to paint these ceilings paint these walls do
the floors tomorrow they got all kind of things they're doing here I say good luck getting it all
done anyway we're take it boom French gray pretty color alright again the idea is give enough fat
on here to play with you'll see what I'm referring to when I get to that stage because when they get
to the stage where I've got to start using water and try this down if it's it's too thin I can't
blend so come in here come in down bringing it here bring it around and how do you know
yes you've got an eighth of an inch to a quarter inch practice fellas that's all it is it's just
practice I can look at this and put up anything on I can put a quarter on I can put a half inch on an
inch I can put whatever I want but of course if I went to the solid inch I'd be way too much so take
it and the idea is again this particular finish is in the plaster and industry standards one of
the hardest most durable finishes there are and that's why they use it mainly for kitchens and
bathrooms but I've used it bedrooms dining room ceilings you name it we've used it it's used a lot
in hotels because of the colors you can you can do so many colors with it and then the color will be
inside the material so even if it even if you hit it say with something it'll still have the color
inside so it's not just like paint where it's only the top what I'm gonna do is just take the
face of this although we've got more than the face to do we've got to go inside these in sets inside
where they store wood and a couple of decorative belly bands but I want to show you guys just some
of the techniques necessary and explain what the heck diamond finish is why because a lot of you
guys are cause of kirkuk you ever use diamond and I say of course of use diamond just never
okay come in here what things about diamond two if you're go ahead and say over sheetrock you've got
to apply plaster weld plaster weld or any kind of bonding agent because it just simply won't adhere
to sheetrock by itself take the mud will but not not any of these plasters a lot of times you'll
see me I'll use drywall compounds or actually I've used every material known to man from tape and mud
to plasters to exterior cements you name it I've done them but for the sake of showing you what
you can do if you've got the talent or the time in will go with this diamond finish here now I've got
my base coat on I look at it and I just if I see some areas that are Hollow I'd go back over them
because soon this is gonna get hard and when it gets hard you can't sand this so you can't bring
it back to life guys once you lose it you lose it you know Kurt doesn't want to lose it because then
I'll have to reach spread the whole thing right now guys if you're using skill when you're doing
this particular product it's all skill if you're using muscle then you let it get away and have I
had to use all muscle because I've met it got away many times many times but you don't want
to do that yes you don't have to okay so just now for the sake of showing you what I'm referring to
I'll leave it at that here and in case some of you guys say to is what kind of Charlie you're
using called a swimming pool trowel and it's for swimming pools but ochre kind of like this trial
here been using it for more than twenty years I used to use it a lot when we did Co ceilings
so I kind of liked it a square chow you'll it'll leave edges unless you know how to get this child
just right anyhow so now what we do is we take a brush guys a little dollar brush they're the best
I've had brushes for thirty forty dollars they don't work very well a brand new brush works the
best and what we do is we're gonna we're just gonna clean a wood like so then you could you
could do this guys I'm gonna take a wing tool what the heck is a wing tool that's just a tool
for getting inner corners I'll show how to use it soon as I clean this thing off okay alright
and get this sucker a little cleaner wing tools got to be clean in order to use it okay you got
a wing tool now I'll save this under here you just take it and it gives you a knife well let
me let me go this way Jay all right I can see what the heck I'm doing gives you a nice corner
come on now get in there there's a nice corner however now you got to go back with your what
I do with my there we go my jaw always got to have a float handy float cleans this because
without a float you put this trial down and you put it on anything and it picks up something now
you're stuck with clinkers on your trial so what I'm doing now is cleaning up my own mess that I
just made with that wing tool now granted the wing tool got my quarter just right but it made
a little mess here and there so looking at it just straightening that out thirty Seconds okay
come this way and last thing I'll do is come across here leave it at that now to give you
guys a good idea of what the heck we're talking about okay guys we're gonna put a conclusion on
this let me give you a couple last tips with this diamond diamond if you could if you can if you're
a good taper you could spread diamond all day long because all it takes is spreading I was spreading
right here and I stick it down I can't make I can't get my trowel lines out I put my child
like this and I thought damn somebody who used it and messed up my rivets so I had to fix it to get
my to get these edges so they've been this way and not this way if you want to see how to fix
the trowel just type in how to fix a child and I do show how to fix these anyway this is proper
now and here's the two brushes you need either a dollar brush or these three dollar brushes a
thirty dollar brush has too many bristles you just take it under here and this is still rode wet and
these little cheap brushes work the best and again now every time you use your your trowel put water
on it every single time otherwise you're gonna bring clinkers you see that water dripping off
that's okay and last thing I'll show you is these inner corners okay now a lot of people I can use
it either way through the material this diamond is about set now it's been on now for a good 45
minutes actually we generally have about half hour so you could take if you're got a good good
eye and just a gentle hand you can come up like so where your corners you can come like this for your
corners and they're gonna have a fireplace insert set in here or you can take a brush now when you
use a brush you want to use the corner you want to use the side of the brush and just go straight up
here turn it around and go straight up here and then a little bit more troweling and say because
you don't want some of those brush lines or float lines showing you just take it and go over it one
more time and if you get anything like holiday you can still write it's gonna darken much much
darker because right now it's still still pretty loose generally I've been playing with us now for
almost 45 minutes and that's about the about the right set time anyhow guys there's no way
to show everything we are doing right now in a 10 minute video we did our best anyway my name
is Kirk Jason on the camera as usual we thank you for watching, I will see you guys at the next one.