01 -- Materials to slake lime

The first step tests the artist's patience. One adds lime to water and waits for a minimum of 6 weeks before he can start painting. This process is called "slaking" the lime. I believe the idea is to make sure that water saturates each particle of lime dust, to make a consistent plaster that will not crack or pit when the final fresco painting dries. It is even better to wait 2 or more years before using the lime plaster. Thus, part of the challenge is to make sure that the lime does not dry up while it is slaking.

Below are the materials we bought to slake lime:

• Cake sifter -- 12" S/S Rim Sieve

• 12" Pizza Pan

• 40 quart bucket (Bain Marie) and lid

• Plastic scoop

By luck, the Economy Restaurant Supply is practically next door to the Sculpture Resource Center.

The idea is to scoop the lime into the large cake sifter, and shake the lime into a bucket of water -- adding lime to water (rather than water into lime). The pizza pan is supposed to cut down on the dust when it is placed over a full cake sifter.

• 5 gallon paint buckets

• White lids

• 3 mil plastic bags

The 5 gallon buckets are for storing the slaking lime. 2 heavy duty plastic bags (one inside the other) are placed inside the 5 gallon bucket. Then the bags are filled with the lime/water mix, closed tightly (say with rubber bands), and covered with a 5 gallon bucket lid. The object is to make the seal as watertight as possible, so that the lime does not dry out during storage.



We bought the white lids rather than the orange lids. The orange lids were poorly made, not fitting on the 5 gallon buckets, then warping when taken off.

(The last time we made lime we could buy better lids, ones for paint buckets that snapped to a tight seal, and had to be cut on the sides before they would come off).



Non-functional orange Home Depot lid prone to warping. Probably due to the "Chinese factor," being poorly made overseas.