Plasterer Zeno Smith stands next to a stuffed bear in March at his home. Smith has been plastering for more than 50 years.

Plaster is not an out-of-date product. Even though many ceilings and walls are decorated with drywall now, plastering can still be found in buildings, offices and hotels.

For Zeno “Zip” Smith, 78, of Concord Township plastering has been a way of life for decades.

He has been plastering walls in homes, schools and churches ever since he can remember.

Dave Taylor, a worker with Local Union 31 in Pittsburgh since 2002, is amazed at the accomplishments of Smith and his fellow 1961 inductees.

“We have approximately 31, 50-year members,” Taylor said.

With Smith's service of more than 50 years as a member of the Operative Plasters and Cement Masons International Association, he has firsthand knowledge for fellow plasters to follow.

Pointing to plaster in his kitchen and living room, Zeno shows some of the techniques he uses.

“I use a (corn) molding technique,” Smith said. “The mold itself, after formed, can make different designs on ceilings.”

The most important base coat plasters use is stucco.

According to Taylor, “stucco is an exterior finish that goes on your exterior walls. It is a cement finish that goes on your house or on a building with about three coats.”

There are many elaborate designs plasterers can form from molds.

“One time someone requested that we make a Steelers emblem on their wall,” Smith said. “He wanted the green grass and everything but he wasn't allowed.”

Taylor advises several different ways to repair old plastering jobs.

“It all depends on the condition of the walls and what caused the problem,” Taylor said. “If it's a plaster job, it's not simply old age. It's a matter of what caused the damage.”

For instance, plasterers can chop out a small section and just replaster the torn edge, or they may need to replaster the whole job.

Some of Smith's tools include trowels; floats, which are hand tools with a flat face used for smoothing and finishing the surface of plaster, cement or stucco; hammers; screeds, which are strips of wood to be used as a guide while applying plaster; and hawks, which are tools used to directly apply the plaster.

They and other plastering supplies can be found in hardware stores like Lowe's and Home Depot.

For more than five decades, Smith has turned his plastering skills into a family business. He taught his son, Kent Smith, who has been plastering with him since 1975. Some of their work can be seen in the Butler County Courthouse, St. Paul Parish, the Old Stone House and homes around the county.

“I've worked on 500 to 600 homes,” Smith said.

Smith was married to the late Martha Jane and has five children. He enjoys deer and bear hunting in Potter County with his sons and grandchildren.

But Smith lives for trapshooting, a form of competitive clay pigeon shooting. He has been a lifetime member of the Amateur Trapshooting Association.