hi guys Kirk and Jason here with Kirk Giordano plastering, down here I'm down in the dungeon
probably gonna get some echoes and stuff here. Today what we're gonna show you folks is
how we skim coat these walls, now look we are in beautiful San Jose once more. The fella here emailed
me and showed me these walls I was able to see what he had in that told the walls need to be
pressure washed first. I would advise down in that little hole there you go with at least
3000 psi pressure. So he rented a pressure washer and he went with a 3000 psi. Because he had mold mildew
and dirt, dust, grime you name it we had it here so the idea is not to waste your time spinning
your wheels, with a wire brush, do it the real way and get these walls scored meaning, you can't
see it but they're scored with that strong psi, in order to receive this bonding agent. Now the
bonding agent I use. I'm going full strength with a bonding agent what I generally do is buy a can
of bonding agents stir up the bottom because sometimes it settles, some I've had can settle
where it's 3 inches on the bottom. So if if you don't stir it up you're diluting it on here. We
want full strength because it was where I get a lot of folks saying, gee, can we color coat block?
I say of course you can. but if you color coat block all the grout lines will show they'll crack
and every time it rains. you'll see enhanced even so I generally tell folks well if it were me, what
I would do first is I would skim it and these guys they had somewhat of a tannish white color here, I
said I'll tell you what I'll make one trip out there, you pressure wash it and we'll just come
apply the bonding agent, and go with a white base cement so, meaning our skim coat is
is white stucco and the sand will dictate the color. I said it'll be somewhat like this and
be maintenance-free you never have to paint it. because once you start painting something that's
enough an area like this intends to seal it better to let it breathe in so anyhow Jay's gonna mix me
up about oh six eight buckets and I'm gonna skim this and I'm gonna give everything a sand finish
I've tried to skim all of this right here I'll put a coat on it it's gonna be about a quarter
inch on the block about a half inch where the grout is because that's in set about a happen
total thickness is gonna be anywhere between the two so we'll skip it we're gonna put corners on
here and then we'll give it that sandy look I told him I can do whatever finish you wanna skip trial
sand if it were mine I'd go skip our sand finish so that's what we're aiming towards here so when
Jay gets his mix going we'll show you the next phase of spreading this out all right guys Jay's
gonna be mixing up about six to eight buckets for me we didn't bring a mixer on this one because we
don't need it mixer all the way over here it's just overkill so we're mixing everything by hand
cold day hopefully we don't get rained out
alright guys we are spreading material now what I'm doing is I'm just taking it at the natural
line right here we're leaving this cap so I just get my top our sides get my top and I am going to
be rotting this Wow you get the idea when you're doing stuff like this guys always start from the
top work your way down JD's gonna mix up some more and we'll show you as we go ok guys because they
have a window here not sure if it's better more living room I'm doing two walls out of time this
way when I float this it'll all be consistent as far as the color generally he says well gee I'll
just paint I said man you don't have to do that especially if you don't like what the color as
you can that's just a little tip that we just do one wall at a time when you're working with
this kind of cement and the colors tend to be more uniform all we're doing is it's just this just a
skim coat - guys just a skim coat well we got to float in it I'll show you that part - okay guys
I only planned on doing taking this wall down like I did this whole wall but the fan kind of
dictates where I start and stop it's starting to get hard so I got to stop what I'm doing and love
this okay because we have a clean cap here I've got a clean flow I hit that right there then spin
this around you hit it again that way I keep my cap clean I'll show it once more trying to keep
that cap clean and then I'll float the rest of the wall one swipe then I'll turn this around and hit
it again now now I start to float it and a float finished just means you're bringing the aggregate
out I'll bring in the sand out that's a fancy word aggregate for the sand and stucco it's always sand
and concrete it's the aggregate as the size of the rocks oh and I'm trying to keep the water
uniform this is gonna vary a little bit in color but because he may not paint it I'm trying to
keep it as consistent as possible too so taking it upwards same amount of water as I used right here
and I'm just gonna have cuffs cuffs world circle marks just like that taking it upward motion
and you want to do it while it's still moist for an example I can still put finger marks if
I can't put finger marks in it then it's gonna be you gonna use twice the elbow grease I'd rather
use skill than muscle any day there we go and that's what we call float finish over retaining
wall when this dries it's gonna be so much buried in color but it's gonna be pretty uniform to the
forest texture okay guys back in the dungeon Jay just asked me it would need another trial
I'm using a pretty large cha here to get around all these rungs but personally it's kind of fun
with a bigger crowd you know how to do it pull it up long as you don't get rocks take it like
so this way that way here come around fill your trowel up come here and go upward high between
your feet I'll show you again one more rum you did some more mud on here takes a little
practice buddy I'm used to it take it here upward back just and you can always float those out I'm
actually using a green sponge blow that brings the sand out it also compresses it that's kind
of important too anyway we're about to take a small break and when I come back we'll show you
this last bit of floating up and pretty much done in here just got to clean up everything okay guys
we are all set what I do is I just go over after I pull all the tape off of the windows you sometimes
we bury the win Frane we just pull it upward like that with clean water and we give it all
flow finish now again you can use Portland cement it gives a grey appearance sometimes
people say I'd rather have it grade than tan so we do whatever is asked of us anyhow my name is
Kirk and as usual folks Jason and I thank you for watching and we'll see you on the next one.