>Plaster of paris and lime plaster do not mix -
>properties are different.
>
>Are you applying your plaster onto a dry wall? HUH! This board is getting wierder all the time, first you insist on telling me to paint dark to light, now plaster doesn't mix with lime!! What do do you think half the houses/buildings in Europe and North America are made with?
Plaster is the perfect companion to lime because it slightly expands, whereas lime shrinks. Plaster cures quickly, lime cures slowly - so you can balance the plasticity and long working times needed for specialty and decorative finishes. Both are brilliant white, and easily pigmented (although lime can effect some pigments). White cement, a fairly new material, is also a material for lime but it shrinks like the lime - so sand has to be added
Lime whitewash is fairly durable, the recipes add things like calium chloride, etc, to improve its durability in running water. Limewash continuely adapts and passes through water vapor, where as latex, acrylic, alkyd form a fairly weak skin - which easily peels off when it is unable to adapt to changes in the substrate. The main reason that lime wash is applied every year is for its antibacterial, antifungal effect - plus it freshens up any where with its flat, bright color and nice smell (fresh corn torillas!). The villages of Greece, which have been whitewashed every year for generations, have built up a thick, tough hide of calcium carbonate, which is harder than limestone or marble.
