all right guys Kurt Karl and family here with Kirk Giordano plastering today, I want to answer
a question fella a couple fellas called me and said hey Jay Kirk how do you do the tops I can
do the walls I can do the bottoms but every time I go up I tend to pull it upward and it all falls
or I can't handle the trial to get it where it won't get all over the brick I should have
simple technique guys and this all we're going to do today is for scratching a whole bunch of
stuff we got about 15 of these guys right here so in order to show you what I'm talking about
first thing I'm going to do is get a little bit of mud right here generally I start from the bottom
but just to prove a point I'll start right here I take my mud I'll take it here and then I'll push
in I'll show it to you in super slow motion guys take your you put it on then you push upward and
if that don't do it start again and just get it upward see that upward now it doesn't matter if
you're doing Gables on a roof something like this this actually is easy to explain because I'm right
here next to it you just you you could put your Hawk under it too and what this does is it won't
get it all over an e but won't get it all over the brick won't get it all over anything we got some
loose wires there so I'm tightening it down I'm using my favorite little trial now a second ago
we had all of this taped off it's funny we had all this we had this taped off with this plastic here
and then Karl says aw dad they don't have it right here that's built up so I thought man I would have
missed that because I'm so used to doing things by the rules but what we're doing is we're matching
that finish so any any mud I drop is okay right here where I have this vent what I'll do is I'll
put my trowel over it and notice what I'm doing I'm putting my child here going upward and then
I'm pulling it straight down show you again you put it here pull it and then straight down now let
me show you that a couple more times guys you put it here up and then if you just if you just pull
it straight up like like here to get all over the eaves and stuff like that and sometimes we
have a roof here so you can't pull it up best to learn how to do it like this because I have that
bent I have my hawk underneath it that's no big deal to put your Hawk underneath it and do what
you have to do and any of that drops your Hawk catches it but even if a bunch jaw hello have
a little bit of mud please ah even if some drops on this particular it's okay because I've got to
fill that up anyway and actually a scratch coat of mud down there would make it real nice for
the next coat so what I'm doing guys is again I'm following that particular pattern I was just going
to it pulling back so see ya in a second I'm going to and I'm putting a thick guys you look at it and
say well I'm going a half inch thick minimum it's always best for a scratch coat to go a little bit
thicker then the brown with in the brown coat that gives it a little bit more strength also
to on a scratch coat I'm generally going three to one what's three-to-one me that means for every
every I'll get it in here we got a big gap over here taking up my concentration for every 100
pounds of cement plaster we have in 300 pounds of sand real cold day here too it's like 45 degrees
fortunately I'm warming up now so what I'm doing now is I'm getting my size why I'll get my side
right here so that now I can break out the cheater or what what we call a go devil if you go online
these are called go Devils geo de de el devil we used to call them cheaters Liberace's and
all kind of weird stuff when I was working Union now what we want to do is I mean I could use the
my hulking child for this but just because I want to save some time and I'm kind of fond of these
guys right here we save some time plus I take the strain off of you know if you got a hulking child
guys hulking ciao you're doing this all day be year after year after year it really tweaks your
spine this here I'm using my lats now so my lats are holding it I'm pushing hard and when you use
the go-devil guys it does take practice but more importantly it takes a little bit of muscle to
because you got to push hard push hard and also like notice I have a couple inches on my go-devil
because if I were to fill it up all the way what would happen guys it was it would smear off okay
say for example I see guys do this and I go dude you're going to drop a lot of mud see all the mud
it's on the edges here when I hit this wall it's going to drop off watch this so that excess drop
off the edges that's why you don't ever do that you take your cheater make it a little pyramid
and that you take it and you don't fill the edges that way you don't get drop off here I don't mind
a drop off because I got to build that up anyway so we take in here like so yeah take this here
and you got to push hard guys this stuff it does take some a bit of practice and it takes a bit of
skill you got to push really hard I see a lot of guys who use these and they don't push real hard
and what happens is you put too much on it just like a cow crapping on flat rocks you can hear
it plop so okay I got the majority of that done I'll put this go-devil back in here and get my
handy dandy Hawking trowel generally I'm using this Kongo trial here big difference like this
big trial here is almost like a agar B or a rod you take it straight up it's like rotting the
work that's why I like to use this big one here but I don't recommend anybody use a big combo one
like this because takes a lot of practice guys so anyway what what I'm doing here is I'm just going
to take it because I got a lot of fat on the top come around here take this excess mud fill it up
here come around here Rob Peter hey Paul take it and I take right here and again notice we don't
care how much mud sits on this brick because we're going to have to scratch that anyhow so
this big one here acts those off as a Darby or a rod however you want to call it you give me the
wrestler oh just like so here ah here by the way somebody asked me the other day this is how do you
make it stick on a ceiling well the way we make it stick on a ceiling is now granny gravity is
against us when we were working on the ceiling I go to the one what's two to one me for every
100 pounds of cement plaster 200 pounds of sand this is 300 pounds of sand for every 100 pounds
and when we do a brown coat we use sometimes 400 pounds it's four to one all depends on what you
want to do and guys whew this uh this rose bush buddy have my gloves on it what it got me I'm
stealing this flower for my wife when I leave anyway here's what we do we're going to finish
up we're going to give a little bit of mud here does it matter this just wood right here I can
clean that right off finish this last piece here because we got about ten of these guys we're doing
there we go you get some mud under here under here and take it right here push it in like I did the
top pull it up easy-peasy nothing to it sure one more technique guys alright so we're gonna pull it
up here flip it around pull it up here now here's what I'm gonna do anyhow guy takes a mud takes it
must take some mud because I got to build that up thanks much I could have had loo just throw this
on with a shovel we got to match what we have over there no problem close your eyes and do
this stuff guys and by the way he - eh there's metal and back of that metal going all the way
down to the cement and then that drip screed is pretty much for looks they felt they wanted to
put that there but they didn't have to because the the flashiness is protected the mud seal no
it's all protected there anyway we take it like that now what we do is we get a scratcher scar
fire they call them we call them scratchers for 30-something years they're scar fires take it and
I like to a lot of people say hey Kirk you know they make trials that that have those scratch
marks in it that is a fact and I have two of those useless things on my truck just for the
heck of it they're okay for tile but not for this notice this red tape now I can close my eyes and
the red tape gets off any excess meaning that red tape is my guide the trials that have for
example the notches in it those are useless these are here when you're when you're working fast and
you just want to put some lines in it plus you want to gauge you can just you don't have to
look guys it's nothing to it Union we always use these right here anyway I'm gonna take my
float clean up my edges clean up a little bit of excess that I've dropped like for my scratch
right here this is also going to get scratched at the bottom we take it float clean it yeah I could
have covered this guy's but it's not a big deal for me to do this here either we take it and just
clean it up take the water it's all going to be painted anyhow and right here at the bottom I'm
actually going to just take this right here just like so to match what they have over here anyway
guys piece of cake if you know what you're doing alright guys let me show you one more one more
time with without using any mug I'm gonna put this mud here just to prove a point if you go
up say say for example you put your mud here it slam it on the wall now you're going to take your
trowel and you're going to push this mud up like so then push it down and then if you what I do
is I I look at the wall and I lift the bottom edge up a quarter-inch now I'm going down and
I'm going flat because I'm holding it on there if you do this you put it on and you go up and
you're not sure and then you take it too much and you come down what will happen all that's
just going to come right off so make sure you do it and it's just learning how to use your wrist
just kind of like snowboarding oh all my kids do this cuz Carl he's a motor craft motocross bike
rider Jays a rock climber Madeleine's a drummer luli they all have good hand-eye coordination
because they do sports anyway my name is Kirk we thank you for watching and as usual I'll see you
guys on the next one once again folks we thank you for watching and I really enjoy all your
comments if you guys liked 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