Product Description

Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting, and can be easily manipulated with metal tools or even sandpaper. These characteristics make plaster suitable for a finishing, rather than a load-bearing material.
In architecture
Plaster may also be used to create complex detailing for use in room interiors. These may be geometric (simulating wood or stone) or naturalistic (simulating leaves, vines, and flowers) These are also often used to simulate wood or stone detailing found in more substantial buildings.

In art

Many of the greatest paintings in Europe, like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling are executed in fresco, meaning they are painted on a thin layer of wet plaster, called intonaco (in fact the general term for plaster in Italian); the pigments sink into this layer so that the plaster itself becomes the medium holding them, which accounts for the excellent durability of fresco. Additional work may be added a secco on top of the dry plaster, though this is generally less durable
 

Plaster is widely used as a support for broken bones; a bandage impregnated with plaster is moistened and then wrapped around the damaged limb, setting into a close-fitting yet easily removed tube, known as an orthopedic cast; however, this is slowly being replaced by a fibreglass variety.

Plaster is also used within radiotherapy when making immobilization casts for patients. Plaster bandages are used when constructing an impression of the patients head and neck, and liquid plaster is used to fill the impression and produce a plaster bust. Perspex is then vacuum formed over this bust creating an immobilization shell.

In dentistry, plaster is used for mounting casts or models of oral tissues. These diagnostic and working models are usually made from dental stone, a stronger, harder and denser derivative of plaster which is manufactured from gypsum under pressure. Plaster is also used to invest or flask wax dentures, the wax being subsequently removed and replaced with the final denture base material which is cured in the plaster mold.

Plasters have been in use in passive fire protection, as fireproofing products, for many decades.

The finished plaster releases water vapor when exposed to flame, acting to slow the spread of the fire, for as much as an hour or two depending on thickness. It also provides some insulation to retard heat flow into structural steel elements, that would otherwise lose their strength and collapse in a fire. Early versions of these plasters have used asbestos fibres, which have by now been outlawed in industrialized nations and have caused significant removal and re-coating work. More modern plasters fall into the following categories:

• fibrous (including mineral wool and glass fiber)
• cement mixtures either with mineral wool or with vermiculite
• gypsum plasters, leavened with polystyrene beads, as well as chemical expansion agents to decrease the density of the finished product