I haven't posted photos of the progress on the Imperial Building recently because there hadn't been a lot of visual changes while they finished tacking tarpaper and chickenwire in the side of the building in preparation for plaster. They had the first coat of plaster, called the "scratch coat", on the east side of the building last Friday. They call it the scratch coat because after the plaster is applied over the chickenwire, which helps hold the plaster on the wall, the plasterer scratches horizontal ribs in the wet plaster. When the plaster dries, the scratches create a hard ribbed surface for the second coat of plaster to cling to. The second coat of plaster is smooth and called the "brown coat" (in older buildings the brown coat often had a brown or sandy color). Together the two coats of plaster form the "scratch and brown" base coat for the final stucco finish.