IWI Progress

[Stickworm]

Hi all I've decided to take the risk and ask for some feedback on these walls, this is the first time I've worked with lime plaster (or plaster at all). It's a lime putty and sand mix, first coat on wood fibre boards. I found the tool I had for creating the key to be less than ideal but I didn't have anything else to hand at the time (I've only got in one direction on some walls as the teeth seemed too tight). Do people think I'm going to run into some major problems now with following coats?

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Maria D]

Did you use a board render/adhesive in the end or dry fix it to the wall? How did you find the process of fixing the boards?

 

[a twig]

Presumably you’re only doing one more coat? Given that it shouldn’t need to be more than a few mm you’ll likely be fine.

A few long nails banged through a block of wood makes a passable scratch tool in an emergency

 

[Stickworm]

Did you use a board render/adhesive in the end or dry fix it to the wall? How did you find the process of fixing the boards?

I used the mix suggested by aockenden (1/2 part NHL 3.5, 1/2 part lime putty, 1 part fine hemp and 1 part sand). I wasn't able to source the hemp locally and as it's bulky and I didn't have another order coming up I packed it out with the woodfibre board offcut fluff instead. I found it okay to work with but definitely not as easy as those videos where people are spreading it on in seconds like soft butter. I then also mechanically fixed it to the wall, again you need more fixings than you might expect as boards have to be cut to fit so you end up with more pieces . Sorry I didn't see your original question on the previous thread. Had the wall been flatter I'd have been happy to simply mechanically fix and save the effort.

Presumably you’re only doing one more coat? Given that it shouldn’t need to be more than a few mm you’ll likely be fine.

A few long nails banged through a block of wood makes a passable scratch tool in an emergency

Yeah nails in the block of wood would be the sensible way to go I just had a train to dash for. I wasn't even necessarily doing the next coat(s) myself as it might be best to get a pro in to achieve a nice finish. That one isn't actually as thick as I'd like, I found the plaster wasn't sticking to the wall as nicely as I'd hoped, it's probably only about 5mm thick. Any extra insight on quality of key vs thickness vs everything falling off the wall would be welcome as it definitely seems like a potential weak spot here.

I'll do a better write up at some point but the thing that's generally been the biggest struggle is just the amount of energy/time required to mix stuff up. Initially I was doing it by hand but then bought a cement mixer as my back just couldn't deal with it anymore. Also the weight and volumes of things, I don't drive so anything not coming on delivery (sand) has been a faff.

 

[Maria D]

Thanks for the update. It's good to hear about others' experiences with IWI. It's the next step in our renovation process.