Running repairs: in situ plaster moulding

                         In situ Plaster Moulding repairs

                                     South London

This is a repair of a plaster cornice  in a Victorian house in South London I ran it on the ceiling or in  situ Rather than taking a mould from the original and making a fibrous repair in the workshop subsequently planting. It Its rarely done these days since the development of fibrous plasterwork and the moulding materials nowdays are so much easer.There are times however that it is cheaper and quicker to do the work in situ as a one off or a small section where making a silicone mould would add to the expense

Traditionally most plaster moulding was done on site The plain sections formed with a running mould or 'horse' and any enrichment or decorative sections were cast from a jelly mould and fixed individually.In later Victorian times this was known as a gelatine insertion mould It was the standard way of forming decorative work and the tradesmen were very skilled quick and neat mainly on a piecework rate so they worked very fast and to a high standard I bet they would have laughed themselves sick watching me fiddling about covering the place with plaster Materials were difficult to come by and so I doubt they would have had much patience with the likes of me

Firstly we put a scratch coat  of lime plaster over the lathwork 

Scratch coat applied to wall and ceiling 

                   

Float coat

Running rules fixed and running mould forming straight run sections of cornice

Section run to match original

mould magically running itself

Ready for the hard bit making good the mitres

Mitres and joints made good

mitres made good and top /finish coat of lime plaster applied to walls and ceiling

The ceiling rose had gone so I made up a mould and run one down on a bench 

Drawing of mould for ceiling road