Howdy guys, Kirk and Jason here, with Kirk Giordano Plastering,
today we just want to show you something about caulking hairline cracks and a little bit about
bulging, you know I do a lot of videos and we recommend certain products like like this system,
it's called Mor-flexx it's caulking with sand in it guys, I tell people, if you got cracks use
this caulking, and guys this, all the caulking are made to go usually about three-eighths or less
if you go fatter than that they'll suck in and you got to do a second time, big deal, here's what
the guy had a crack here and here and years ago, he fixed them with this, but these
are little their past cracking and why? because we don't have a weep screed here we've screwed
at the bottom here allows the house to move and settle with when it rains it lifts and then when
drier conditions occur it drops down this is a little bit more than hairline crack and that's
bulging it's due to the fact that there's no expansion joint, how do you fix that guys? a couple ways to do it, you could I mean it's kind of beyond caulking but if you're really good you
could use caulking, here's what I would tell folks okay put some glasses on guys you don't want this
stuff going in your eyes and put wear a mask, don't worry about me I've been doing this for
40 years, so a little bit more ain't gonna kill me. Here's what I recommend guys get rid of it.
Okay that's not actually as bad as I thought it was gonna be okay we got the original hairline
crack, gouge it out guys what I'm gonna do here is gauge it out and then take a wire brush and
get rid of the rest of it no dust guys because I don't care what kind of caulking you got you
got it even the strongest caulking like say the Sikaflexes, which are adhesive caulking
professional type adhesive caulkings, even those will not adhere to dust guys once you score it
like I'm doing now get rid of all this stuff you know, you don't need all fancy tools guys. All I'm
doing is I'm using a putty knife all in one tool okay so just for example there's that can i refix
this with caulking me absolutely I can but I got a wire brush at first but I've got some stucco
mix because I'm doing something else too I'll show you how another way this is a heavy finish
this sand if you're going for sand and caulking like say for tile, it's very fine this is a little
heavier because it's for stucco so it's it's got finer grains, but is it this heavy no, no, no, this
is very heavy, so I'll show you an alternate way to do it with caulking or to do it with stucco
because I got some stucco anyway we're gonna mix and do something else oh one last thing okay here
is prepped also and guys again no expansion joint no expansion joint you get the hairline
cracking very typical guy we if I was going to use stucco I still fill this up with caulking because
caulking lasts a lot longer and it's flexible. If I just use stucco only, it'll pop back off the
first time it starts, well within a season or two. Anyway, we get to that stage we'll show you.
All right guys we are doing a number of things here but I'll show you what will happen if you use a
caulking with sand in it you know what you're doing you first of all you want to put excess
and so I got a lot of excesses here, now this is, I'm just using this to match the texture inside this
crack here I actually used another caulking, and that is Sikaflex it gives a lot of movement but
it doesn't have any sand in it, now you can do this guy's excess little tiny bit more always
put a little extra if you're trying if you're doing a crack guys there's a couple of things
you should know, you could what I'll generally do if it's just a crack goes right inside only to
the crack after you clean all the dust-out, just in the crack. Not on the edges but the edges came
off that's why I'm doing them the whole crack now one more tiny bit and again guys when you
use any kind of caulking if you go super thick it will suck up into it in a day or two so I'm
gonna show you three ways to do this guy all right there's one way and if you're pretty good
with a float which is it says uh some caulking you cannot touch with water, like polyurethanes
now take the flat the float and this is what he did on a lot of the cracks and it's okay for a
crack but when you have something this large right here it's not going to match the surrounds so even
if I bring out the aggregate or the sand that's in this caulking, it's not gonna be perfect but for a
super hairline this the caulking is with say like more flex it has the sand in it it's perfect but
for bigger one like this what I recommend is go to Home Depot or Lowe's guys, and get yourself a
ten-pound box of rapid set stucco rapid set stucco it's got a lot of sand in it it's called a 16/20.
and I'm actually doing other things on this so I'm using another kind of cement and this actually is
not rapid set stucco, this is just premium stucco and to make a point the rapid set you could buy
it in ten or twenty-five-pound boxes and a big bag, the stuff I'm using this 94-pound bags, nobody's
gonna buy 94-pound bag for a little thing like this. But if you use it and say the rapid
set, now here's all you do and will this affect, because I left the caulk in there will it affect
it not really good, it's all going to dry out it will all dry out okay now what I would generally
say is you guys leave that alone for a few minutes but I don't need to leave it alone, I'm gonna use
the same float guys the same float that I just floated that caulking and remember you can't
float all Caulkins if some of them will clean up with water you can float them the ones that are
polyurethane is like Sikaflex or Moist-stop you can't do this so don't try it, anyhow guys now I'm gonna
float this and because it has the sand in it, and because this is such a heavy finish it'll match
a lot better, a lot better guys, just have to know your materials, know your cement and stuff like
that I'm telling you rather than use Portland cement where you got to add sand just buy a bag
of the Rapid said stucco, you can buy that stuff almost everywhere, now it used to be you could only
buy the Eisenwall which is a sister product in plastering yards this stuff you can buy it the
the "Rapid set" stuff you can buy it anywhere and it's local, Lowe's, Home Depot even off
though I mean little bitty hardware stores you can buy it I got this at Economy lumber in Oakland.
is where I buy little 10-pound boxes for a little thing okay now if you see that right there that's
almost a real tight match, but now the sponge is got stucco in it so I got to clear it out
getting it all out and I'll just hit it once more guys with a clean clean sponge and all I'm doing
now is I cleaned it so that it won't stick so I can feather into this existing a little bit
better because the transition guys are everything okay a lot of what the more water the more sand
I can bring out less water the flatter it gets I want the sand what is painted to match the sand
that's there now anyhow that's getting tighter getting tighter and my stove all done you got
the Sun right in my eyeballs, let's see, there we go guys, you guys just keep messing with it until
it's right where you want it. Remember the more water the more aggregate comes out, the less water
the flatter it becomes, anyhow guys I thought I'd explain these hairline cracks like they
don't affect the integrity of the house either. So don't worry about them, just fix them
they're maintenance.
We thank you for watching and as usual guys, Jay and I will see you on the next one.
by the way folks, my dad and I are now members of Amazon affiliates so if you're looking to buy any of the plastering or construction tools you've seen in our videos and you want to support us in the process you can check the links below our video or you can go to our website and get them
there if you have any other questions that for tools we don't have linked email us direct and
we'll respond to you then once again folks we thank you for watching and I really enjoy all
your comments if you guys like this video please click the like button down below and also if you
enjoy what we do subscribe to our channel so we can keep making these videos for you my name is
Kirk and Jay, we thank you for watching and from the entire Giordano family we'll see on the next one.