Thanks chaps, hope some of those links help you out a bit Skavenger, and as far as the Youtube stuff is concerned, it's amazing how many expert, how to do it type vids there are on Youtube, about all sorts of topics, it's always worth a vid search.
BTW, if you want to download any vids for viewing offline, a free program called Orbit Downloader works with most sites, including Youtube, it's free, and pretty easy to use, there are actually two combined programs, Grab ++, and Orbit Downloader.
Once you install it, you just start the video playing, right click somewhere on the page, select, Grab Video by Orbit, from the drop down list, Grab ++ opens, you select the URL of the vid from the list of URL's in Grab ++, start the download, and then once the download has started, you can close the vid, and start to download more vids if you want to, if you also open the main Orbit Download program, the download progress is visually displayed, and even if that program isn't open, you hear a chime when the download is complete.
Even large vids download pretty quickly if you have a fast connection speed.
http://www.orbitdownloader.com/
" Render is frequently used as an internal scratch coat, it’s cheaper than base coat gypsum plasters "
Ah, thankyou Richard, that explains it, as I said, I had only ever previously heard of render being referred to in the context of external rendering.
" but not as easy for the inexperienced to lay on. "
That's useful to know.
I imagine that your links were more intended for Scavenger than they were for me, especially so since the first link contains mix proportion info, but they look very interesting, lots of information there, and I will read them in detail.
Now that is clear, here are some more links for you Scavenger, that might give you a heads up about mix proportions and so on.
Rugby Cement, they should know their stuff.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...ndering+mixes&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=opera
http://rugby.cemex.co.uk/downloads/howtomixconcretemortar.pdf
http://diydata.com/materials/cement/cement.php
These next links are about external rendering, but i imagine that they might give you some useful info.
http://www.goldtrowel.org/rendering.asp
http://www.goldtrowel.org/rendering2.asp
http://www.goldtrowel.org/rendering3.asp
Also, I seem to recall that builders merchants often have a range of leaflets from suppliers on their counters, and I believe that the ones from cement suppliers often contain useful info about suitable products for various jobbs, and mix proportions.