Hello folks, kirk and Jason here with Kirk Giordano plastering, today what I want to show
is an age-old question we've been getting this since I've been in business, I thought man why
not just show it once and do a video and that way when folks ask you could show it to them on video
instead of doing samples all the time? what I'm going to do here guys we're doing a two coat system a
scratch and a brown and they said I want it smooth so I asked well how smooth do you want it? do you
want a scratch in a brown and let it cure and do a Santa Barbara or BMI marble or smooth finish like
that or do you want a to coat system? he says I want a to coat system we're going to paint
it and I wanted to smooth as you can get the two coat so I thought I'd show you folks how smooth
we can get the two coats some do's and don'ts the first thing we're going to do is I had this board
set up on the ground and Jay said hey Dad do you really want to bend down I said hell no, not if I
don't have to so he set me up here what I'm gonna do guys is I'm gonna scratch this out I want to
simulate exactly what we're doing the best way possible and that way means I have to do oh my
first coat at 3/8 and then my second coat at 3/8 well right now I'm going to do all these squares
I won't bore you with doing them all but what I'll do is this one's going to be a hard rubber float
finish that's using this after it cures to show you how smooth we can get it and hopefully, Jayson can
zoom in with that camera and show you a little a bit better there's gonna be a light float finish
this could be a heavy float finish a little extra water and this is gonna be a steel trowel finish
I'll take my steel trowel and I'll finish it what happens if you use a steel trowel with
a scratching Brown the crack is that normal yes that's why is what they do is they put two coats
they do a scratch coat they allow a scratch coat to cure then they come with the second coat and
that also is allowed to cure and what will happen with those two coats naturally during the drying
process which is 48 hours for scratch all about I would say we usually go a week minimum to two
weeks for three weeks in the winter to allow the brown coat to cure if we're going to do this color
coat so what I'm gonna do here is get these coats on finish this one up here clean it up a little
bit put my scratch marks allow that to set for for a little while then we're gonna come back and do
the follow-up coat I'll show you that when we get to that point okay guys we got that scratch coat
set up feel like I'm back in apprentice school we had to do a lot of these samples minute ago I was
kind of nervous about putting these finishes on cuz I thought this board was gonna flip but that's
a pretty solid order already so now I'm just going to go ahead and and brown out these squares and
I'll show you what the heck I'm referring to with these different finishes okay we just spread this
guy yeah are you doing dude let's be working spend your lunch time in hundred degree weather
Then again, Jason and I are showing you guys how to do this I couldn't
have picked. Yeah, it all depends on how you look at it. It's a hot day,
but I don't mind working in the heat. I'd rather work in the heat than, say,
40 degrees or the cold. I actually love the heat, plus it's helping this sample dry out.
that's for sure this this little a-frame we set up won't flip now because it's pretty sturdy all
right guys I'm gonna do it as soon as I'm done here I'm gonna show you immediately what I'm
referring to as far as these textures should I wait 48 hours and come back and show you I could
but I think you guys will get the point I hope you will because again I'm gonna use this video
here to show what you can and what you can't do and what to expect from me or anybody doesn't
matter who's doing your stucco work if you tell a fellow hey all I want is to coach well decided
to skip trial finish I'll show you what we can do as far as you get it smooth now keep in mind
guys I've done houses I've done a few custom homes 8,000 to 10,000 square foot houses and I've
had people say Kirk I want a hard steel trowel finish and I tell them all well if you want a
hard steel trowel finish and you only want the two coats you know that when the scratch in the brown
cure naturally it's gonna hairline the degree of hairline depends on say the house if it's
a brand new house on three stories new foundation that house is gonna crack because of settling if
it's a 50-year old house three stories it's gonna likely crack less anyhow I think I'm getting the
feel for this right here to see just how much time is necessary I can look at all of these coats and
determine when to do my finish and so stay with me because as I'm just trimming out the corners
making it look pretty which is not necessary it's also given me a chance to get a feel I'm
feeling this out and seeing when it's ready for the rest of my so called smooth finishes okay
guys well we're stage we're in the right now is some of us ready somes not but I don't need it
completely ready to show what I'm trying to do okay guys let me show you a few things these are
hard rubber floats hard rubber that means they're rubber and they're hard this is a plastic float
it's for polishing usually interior these are swimming pool trials when you're doing swimming
pools you may have noticed I use these quite a bit I fancy them they're great square trials
sponge floats okay now Dan walked by earlier it's his dad I can't even make out what that
is how the people on the camera are going to do it there's a hard rubber float what I'm going to
show you up here hard rubber float finish down here it's gonna be a heavy float finish that
heavy just means a lot of water up here is the light float finish a little bit of water so it
comes out a lot smoother the grain is gonna be very fine that's gonna be a very heavy because
I'm gonna use a lot of water over here it's just gonna be a steel child finish all right I'm gonna
take the hard rubber float these are hard rubber guys and now this is for a to coach system we can
do an entire wall like this now again if we do the entire wall like this it kind of looks like a
well you can still see the grip guys there is some grit because you could only float sand so
smooth just like when you trial it you could only fan trowel down so smooth so the sand if it was
interior plaster yeah you can make that pretty smooth like I don't like to use the terminology
glass but you can get it interior much smoother on the exterior you have sand to deal
even if you use a finer sandwich tends to crack more you out saying now that's about that's
what we call a hard rubber exterior to coat float system now I'll start up here a light
float finished now I have one of my floats in a bucket of water right here this one's got water
in it so if I hit this the water is going to drip down here and that's not what I'm looking
for these are both dry in order to prove a point I will just use a dry float and basically what I'm
doing is I'm bringing out a little bit of sand I'm straightening the wall out compressing it
and bringing out a little bit of sand and I can go this I can bring the sand out twice as much
or half as much but this is what I consider a light float finish here we're just very light
just keep going over it then we let up and if I wanted to I get even smoother than that while
allowing time or just coming back with a dry float time and since I'm working against time meaning
I'm doing all this right now rather than three separate days that that is a light float finish
done with these green sponge flows okay I will do this one here is a heavy float finish or you
can go medium or heavy float finish now the ideas put some water on it guys now the water brings out
the sand or aggregate okay it's bringing out the so called aggregate aggregates just a fancy word
for sand or rocks Portland cement house sand concrete that's rock both made with Portland
cement the only difference is the aggregate size okay now you see that brings out a lot of the grit
if I want to bring even more I just put more water and just I could leave float lines in it where you
see the lines or I can just go over it a few times where there are no float lines but you get the idea
okay now that is a heavy float finish and this is less likely to crack of all of them but will they
all absolutely okay now the last thing I'm going to show you guys is a hard steel child finish and
I could use a square Chow or the other chop now this here again you could only steel trowel sand
so much again I stay away from that terminology glass because this has sand in it this is mighty
smooth right here what happens with the mighty smooth to coat finish this when it cures or cracks
but we don't have that time and we're not going to show that I'm just gonna explain it you will get
cracks in it hairline cracks like wait when I say hairline like the hair on your head it will crack
especially under windows and doors if you just do a to coach system when I worked Union thirty
years ago we had slickers like this to hand and we would slick the houses down and that was when
I was working for McDermott and Seeley Danny Smith plastering a lot of those big companies and the
slickers we do the scratch coat then the brown and we slick it and I remember saying hey Nixon
in the cracking so that's not our business our job is to do a two-coat finish okay guys I want
to refresh that video because J at the end told me dad you screwed that up he's also licensed
contractor so he knows what I know and sometimes I get sidetracked of what we're doing we were doing
a lot of things that day anyway my old sample right there was discarded like yesterday the
old newspapers but the point I was trying to make which I didn't get through so clearly was that the
top two finishes the hard rubber float the fine float finish and the left one on the bottom which
are heavy float finish those are all breathable the stucco can breathe and when I was mentioning
crack and what I should have said was to not scare the crap out of everybody is that they
were hairline possibly possibly the hairline like the hair on your head but that's okay because 28
days later you paint it and the good quality paint will either bridge it or flood it what we call so
there's no worries with that what I was really trying to point out with that video yesterday
was that when we steel trowel a brown coat doesn't matter what stucco company contractor does it if
you steel trowel a brown coat now what you do is you seal it because it can't breathe so those are
the ones that usually will hairline almost every time but if you're gonna paint it's not such
a big deal these folks know it and they said Kirk we're not it's okay you've done work for us in the
past years ago and we've seen some hair lines but it's not a big deal it's a to coat system
so that's what I really wanted to point out and by the way guys the majority of homes that were built
have two coat systems color coats come out in 1926 but they didn't always use those so the majority
of all the color coats in California that I don't wear was probably in the whole country are two
coat systems and will they hairline sure they will especially where windows and doors cause heavy
vibration but it's not such a huge concern I think Jay was right I scared the crap out of too many
folks all you need to do is a good quality paint after the brown coat has cured 28 days is paint it
and a good paint will flood those anyhow guys my name is Kirk I'm with Kirk Giordano plastering and
hope that cleared it up we thank you for watching and as usual we'll see you guys on the next one.