Repairing Corner Cracks In Plaster Walls

The key to any fix is to reunite the plaster with the strips of wood lath underneath.
Repairing corner cracks in plaster walls. Plaster repair is much. He asks us in an e mail. No special tools no special patching products. Plaster walls in older homes are often plagued by cracks and other defects such as pitting and uneven texture.
If the crack is on a vertical or horizontal seam carefully widen the crack with the corner of a paint scraper utility knife or chisel to determine if the crack extends completely through the paper that is covering the seam image 1. There are really only two solutions for unpainted textured walls that crack up the corner. Corners and edges seem to get the most abuse and on corners the damage is especially noticeable. Understanding how plaster walls are constructed will help you fix your cracked plaster wall.
You can try to find a matching caulk that will cover the cracks as well as possible or. If you have ever repaired drywall you may know that it is often easier to replace entire portions with new pieces of drywall it s possible to remove just the section that needs fixing and a few. Here tom silva shows how to repair plaster walls to make them look as good as new. Repairing small cracks in plaster is easy compared to plastering a whole room.
And if the tape has pulled loose from the wall surface. Otherwise the cracks come back no matter how many times you patch over them. Even the most careful family occasionally cuts a corner too close or bumps into a wall resulting in chips and dings in the plaster. Fortunately you can repair chipped plaster and fill wall dings in a matter of minutes.
To repair small cracks in plaster you ll need patching compound medium and fine grit sandpaper a sanding block a putty knife a masonry chisel a paintbrush a rag and a screwdriver. For finishing you ll need primer and paint. An overview photo by david carmack. If cracks are simply filled with spackling or joint compound they have a tendency to telegraph back through.
You do not have to tape and finish the corners. The plaster keys holding it to the underlying lath can also crack and break over time causing the plaster to partially separate from the wall. The process is different for plaster than for drywall.