You could also try adding a handful of sand to the PVA mixture to give it a rougher texture and better adhesion. Pottery plaster is better if you are jiggering and jollying. Jiggers and jollys are both plaster molds. A Jigger is a convex mold that is attached to the wheel head. A slab of clay is flattened onto the mold. This probably sounds like gibberish and makes no sense at all. Let me expand on that and it will make a bit more sense. Let’s get some ground rules out of the way! When wetting your walls use a fine mist spray gun to avoid having to keep reaching down to re-wet your brush. Learning how to mix plaster is essential if you are interested in slip casting, but even if you're not, mixing plaster is a good skill to learn. Plaster has a lot of uses in the pottery studio from plaster drying bats, to simple hump molds. Getting the plaster right can be a little challenging if you are new to it so today we wanted to give you a primer on how to mix plaster. Hopefully, this will give you all the resources to help you better understand and use this essential pottery studio tool.

Avoid under- or over-mixing. Keep your mixing time to no less than 1 minute and no more than 2. When plaster isn't properly mixed, it has a tendency to separate. On the other hand, overmixing can cause bubbles to form, which may decrease the strength of the plaster or ruin the smoothness of the finished wall. [19] X Research sourceDon’t try and get your surface perfect in the first coat – it takes too much time and the plaster may dry too soon – imperfections can be ironed out in later stages. It can also be seen in fresco paintings. It’s used to make duplicates since it doesn’t shrink when submerged in water.

Just follow the instructions for that tutorial and swap out the concrete for plaster…and still use the cooking spray. Lime plaster is also flexible so can cope well with movement in buildings —plus, it has a beautiful soft appearance that does justice to the character of older properties.

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Probably because the powder consistency of plaster is pretty important to it setting up properly, etc. So it’s not just a matter of tossing in some acrylic paint and calling it a day.