Some Finer Plaster Repair

Just a short post on some plaster repair I completed the other night.

I'm not sure of the correct term to describe this piece of timber I worked on, but it's basically a molded plinth that sits atop of a reeded timber upright which lines the opening of the archway leading into the kitchen from the dining room, just below the upper section of the arched molding that traverses the same arch, made from plaster.

The front section of this rounded detail was lost, essentially cut or knocked cleanly away, indicating that this front piece was likely made up of two sections.

I added two screws to provide structural integrity to the piece I was about to fashion:

This is the original on the opposite side, still intact:

I began with a pure lime and water mix:

Whilst it dried nice and hard it didn't bond to the timber very well at all, so ultimately it was a failure:

Through the process of experimentation, I settled upon regular gypum powder filler, mixed with water; essentially a form of Plaster Of Paris:

It stuck incredibly well to the timber and screws, rock solid in fact:

I began shaping with sanding blocks after 24 hours:

I then began chiseling, more like scraping away the lower section to form the two tiered shape:

In the end there was about 90 minutes work in it, but a very satisfying result for a first attempt:

As mentioned, the upper section of the arch was formed with plaster too and needed several repairs after stripping paint from the surface:

All these sections have since been sanded down: