Hi, I'm in the process of rebuilding my garage but I confess to not being a builder!! Having said that all is going really well and I'm now at the stage where the render scratch coat is on. This question although about render would be the same I imagine for plaster.
How do I render up to the garage door frame leaving a true straight finish? Looking in our house, it looks like the plasterers have plastered upto the door frames but how do you get the line so straight from top to bottom. Please tell me there is a method and not that it's down to knack as obviously I won't have the knack!!

Thanks for any advice

You can either use a piece of wood and tack it to the door frame, render up to it and then remove the wood after.

Doorframes are usually fitted after rendering. If you fit them before it becomes very hard to fix architraves as they dont sit flat against the wall.

As far as the skim coat goes, I would either just skim loosely to the egde of the doorframe, as by the time you have put your architraves on, you wont see the line, straight or not.

You can fit the architraves first though, so that when you skim it takes up all the gaps (if there is any).

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Thanks for the reply. I think I'll try to use a plasterers internal angle tool or similar with render only on one side as the frame is already secured to the blocks.

I'm not sure i have the right idea of what it is you mean but this is what i think u mean.

float the wall using the edge of the door casing as a guide. get the gear on and use a straight edge to rule the excess off any hollows that are left can be filled out when rubbing up. (dont forget to devil the render when you have rubbed it up).

you can always fit the arcs and then skim.

hope this helps

If you rul off from the door frame than you can end up with 10mm lip which is hard to fit architraves to.

Ive fitted arcs on a few sites where render has stuck out 20mm form the door frame, End up having to get a router on each length to make sure it sits flat, a real pain in the arse. You can pack the doorframe out with some smaller wood to take up the gap of the render.

In an ideal world, you would render, fit the door lining slightly proud to the render, skim the walls, leaving the skim flush to the door frame, then fit the arcs flat with minimal amounts of caulk.


But 9/10 times it will end up being, lining flush to render, skimmed, then arcs on, having to caulk (sometimes as much as 10mm, depending on how thick the skims been applied) in where they stick out proud.

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I render around this problem day after day and if your plasterer is good enough he will leave the skim flush. My arcs never stick out ten milly but I do know where crooksey is coming from as it does sh*t when that happens. No fun for a chippie to get over

However, As the casing is already fitted this is hoiw I would do it and cut back the reunder from the casing about a trowels width but that isn't easy to do.

Sorry but I think I've confused you all as this has become over complicated than I meant it to be.

Here's the basics of what I'm doing:

Garage door opening constructed of concrete blocks either side.
Garage doors will be two outward opening timber doors hung using hinges as per here:
http://www.ironmongeryonline.com/produc ... lack/2972/

The hinges will be fixed to a timber frame that is bolted to the blocks using Heavy Duty frame bolts.
The timber frame is fixed before any rendering straight onto bare blocks.
There is a 6" return from the outer garage face to the timber frame.
The outer face has rendered in external corner bead.
There will be no plastering or architraves.

I need to s&c render from the corner bead to the frame, leaving a clean straight edge down the frame.
This maybe risky due to frame movement and the render cracking so may consider leaving a small gap and using a sealer to allow for this.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Thanks for all your inputs so far

a picture says a thousand words mate

I think I got what you are on about ... one of the plasterers will explain this better .... but if you place the front end of your trowel on the wood and a finger on the trowel which is touching the outside of your frame, that gives you the distance you want.... then hold your finger in that position and level the render with the long side of the trowel moving upwards, if you keep your finger in the same place the render will be straight ... well at least parallel to your wood.

Someone explain that better please..

Baza

Thanks zeded I get what you mean so I'll give it a go. No pics sorry, got back in the dark!!

I see now. Zed is pretty much on the money with his explanation.
Get your render in the return all the way up. Then place the long edge of ur trowel from the bead to the timber.

Using ur fingers as markers to pin the trowel in place run it up the full length of the reveal. In a sense u are ruling off using ur trowel as a straight edge

Any hollows can be. Filled in when rubbing up

dont see why you cant use a mini mesh bead, angle bead, or stop bead.
Or am i missing something.

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Yep i missed it!

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What would you rather bee or a wasp!

Thanks everyone, jobs done. I used the finger against the trowel method (well I cut a small block of wood to the required depth). I may only be a DIY bodger but the finished bodge looks v.good.

Cheers