Spraying Limewash

[sako243]

Well coat number 4 of watery consistency has gone on. I've just ordered one of the mortar guns and am going to mix up a slightly thicker consistency mix to go over the top.

The aim of the first few coats was to get it to bind in nice and deep which it has done but now I'd like to cover up some of the tiny cracks and gaps so a thicker mix is next.

Coats are down to sub 2h to apply now with no helpers.

 

[sako243]

Well there was a typo in the previous post. Was about 4h per coat with the little 600ml 2.5mm nozzle.

I did a fifth coat of the same watery mix but with the mortar gun @8ob linked above.

It certainly sped the process up, down to about 2h to spray the whole wall. So half the time and was able to put about twice the volume of limewash on. It was a bit more of a hassle because the hopper is so bulky and trying to hold that upright whilst untangling the airline from scaffold etc., was more of a challenge as there's no lid on it. The little HVLP gun you can get away with tipping it over.

Yesterday mixed up a new batch that was about 25 gallons of water to 25kg of quicklime. More of a single cream consistency. Didn't like it - was going on thicker and less consistent, only did a little bit and knocked it on the head, especially as I started to see it cracking up. So I've watered down the mix to go back to what I'm happy with.

I've extracted some of the putty to go around with some marigolds and fill in the little cracks in the stones and pointing. Then will give it a final thin coat I think and that will be done until the scaffold starts coming down and bits need to be filled in where I bolted it to the wall.

 

[sako243]

And finally the scaffold is down. Weekend away and then time to put the scaffold up around the front next week.

 

[sako243]

I bought a 10l pressure pot from Vevor which had a 1.5mm and 4mm gun. The way the "manifold" was assembled it was impossible to install so stripped it apart and then reassembled. Filled it with limewash and then almost launched it off the scaffolding in frustration. Was not spraying consistently and then the gun jammed leaving the limewash peeing out of the end.

Anyway yesterday after doing two coats with the plaster gun I stripped down the gun and rebuilt the manifold again. Much much happier this time around. What was taking about 4h to do a coat on the front had it down to 1h10m including clean up. There's far more overspray with this but it really chucks it on. My only significant criticism is that there's a bit more spray top and bottom of the pattern - I.e. It's not the most consistent but doesn't really matter with the lime. Arms are still aching but that's because they haven't had a proper chance to recover from a ewe damaging something in my left arm when they were shorn since straight after that I was putting up scaffold and then wielding the 6kg gun around for the first two coats.

Been a bit too windy to send up the drone but here's a shot from the lawn.