the next room to be worked in. The table typically consists of folding legs upon which is set a square board of wood and then covered in a plastic sheet upon which the plaster is placed in the center in a large pile. Mixing the product. The mixing barrel is usually pre-filled to a certain level with water; since it can take some time to fill. The amount of water is usually estimated (with a margin of error leaning towards too little). The amount of water required is obtained from the amount of bags planned to be mixed. The estimation is not difficult for an experienced plasterer; who knows how many sheets he can typically cover, and that one bag usually covers 2 & 1/2 to 3 sheets and 5 gallons of water is needed for one standard 50 pound bag. With a permanent crew that normally does the same amount per mix one can simply fill up the barrel to a known cut-off point. Once the mix is set up and the plasterers are ready they instruct the laborer to start dumping the bags in the water barrel, while intermittently running the mixing drill. Once all bags are in the barrel more water is slowly added until the plaster is of proper consistency and is then thoroughly mixed. Before the mixing is completed, a margin trowel (or margin for short) is scraped along the inside wall of the barrel to knock off clinging unmixed clumps (known as cutting in) to be furthered mixed until all is homogeneous. While mixing the drill is slowly brought up and down and follows the edge of the barrel in a circular motion to drag the top of the mix down and ensure an even consistency throughout the mix. Care is taken not to allow the drill's paddle to hit the bottom or sides of the barrel; this can scrape off plastic bits that end up in the mix. At a certain point before the mixing is done a margin trowel is again used to scrape any clinging dry plaster into the rest of the mix. typically this is when the accelerator; if used is added. Mixing can be fatigueing in that the drill tends to not only be heavy but the mixer must also fight the torc of the paddle. Shovel the mix onto the table. The mixing barrel must be emptied as