stucco questions

[Gulf]

Re: stucco questions

Jim,
Either wire is going to be a bh to install without cutting relief slits and tieing the overlapped sections together. I used similar techniques for installing both chicken wire and 1/2" mesh wire.

Here is a link and a quote from a post in my thread.
"To releive the pressure on fitting the dome I started out by wrapping one pass of wire (24") high around the the full circumference at the base of the dome. I used the natural curve of the wire to my advantage.............I then slit the wire @ about 1 foot centers down to the where the curve flattend out on my dome. That is about 4 to 6 inches. This worked great to fit the wire. On the the splices of this run, I added a 2" piece of wire to overlap the splices. For the next two runs I cut the wire into wedge shapes".

The 2" overlapping pieces was just for the very bottom of the relief slits, where they did not overlap. The wedge (trapezoid) shapes can be cut from a run of wire with no waste.

All that said, there are now stuccos with fiber reinforcement. Some say that there is no need for the wire. They are probably right but, I'm an "antique" .

[jimkramer]

So I'm in the middle of curing fires - did roughly 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, and tonight 400 degrees, each for about 4 hours. I'd like to put down lathe and stucco a scratch coat on the dome. Can I stucco before I do the last 450 and 500 degree curing fires? (If I get in a coat tomorrow, I can finish before temps dip below 40 at night.)

Also, how long do I have to let the scratch coat dry before the brown (second) coat?

Finally, I tried using metal cloth, but it was hard to smooth out the ridges (running top to bottom) due to the stiffness. I imagine chicken wire is more shape-able. Any reason not to use it? Or is it better to have the tighter weave of the metal cloth?