I finally stopped using regular spackle on my old plaster walls

A guy at Ferguson's on Menaul told me I was making things worse by using the lightweight stuff. He said the old plaster needs something with more body, like a setting-type compound, or it'll just crack again. I switched to a bag of Durabond 90 for a patch in my 1950s house last month and it's still solid. Anyone have a go-to brand for this kind of repair?

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lily_schmidt535mo ago

Oh man, I feel this. I spent a whole weekend patching cracks in my old place with that lightweight stuff, only to watch it all come back by spring. It was so frustrating. The guy at the hardware store finally clued me in about the setting-type stuff too. I've been using Sheetrock 90 for the bigger jobs and it's made a world of difference.

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ryanf665mo ago

My buddy had the same problem in his old bungalow. He kept filling a long ceiling crack with that lightweight spackle and it would split open every time the heat kicked on. Finally grabbed some USG setting compound, the kind you mix yourself, and troweled that in. That was like two years ago and you can't even find the seam now, it's held up perfectly.

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