STUCCO NEWS.NET

Hi Reggie,

Thanks for all the great info on Stucco News.net. I am stuccoing over a painted cement block house I own on the Chesapeake Bay in North East Maryland. It's heavily painted with old lead paint so I papered and lathed it first before starting. I got some sections to the brown coat stage before winter set in and I stopped. The first few i did are not as uniform in texture and color as i'd like ( I got better as did more) and based on a bunch of YouTubes i was going to put Weld Crete on them before the color coat (and skip trowel finish) to get more uniform suction until I read your site.

I am planning instead to skim with a thin bonding coat of Flex-Con (1/2) and portland/sand on to level everything out and get a better surface. Question: Can I let this dry (say up to a day) before I color coat over it (Quaker Stucco) do I need to cover it before it sets up? I was planning to thoroughly saturate the brown coat with water before I do this.

Thanks so much for all the advice.

This bonding coat method works real good. I started using strong bond instead of Flexcon:
Link for Strongbond
Flexcon went way up over $ 100 per bucket.

We mix our cement basecoat like usual, and shovel the mix into buckets with our half and half liquid mix, and mix with a drill. Mixing with a drill makes a mortar that is easier to spread. If you don't have a drill, it doesn't make much difference.

I never liked weld crete or other paint on type bonding agents for outside stucco. First of all, weld crete on a painted surface will probably fail, even if the old block or stucco is chipped. There were lawsuits in Florida in recent years due to Weldcrete failing. I did the front of a commercial building with weld crete and chipping the block 2 or 3 chips per painted block, 35 years ago. It all started popping off about a year later. I am not going to tell you where it is. I did the work for a difficult customer, so I don't care that it popped off the wall.

Also, a surface painted with weld crete doesn't have any suction, that is, it doesn't absorb water like a cement basecoat. The result is like troweling mortar on an ice cube. The suction from a cement basecoat will give the mortar a firmness allowing you to get the mortar in good shape.

Wetting the old brown coat is a good idea.

Letting your bonding coat set up overnight should be adequate before putting on the finish.

We use acrylic bonding admixtures half and half with water for our finish coat, also. Not only is a bonder insurance for a good bond, it eliminates shrinkage cracks and doubles the strength of cement mortar.
Thanks so much for visiting my site !.