Decorative plastering

Wooden hand tools, also known as ‘small tools’, were used for modelling and finishing work in the plastering trade.

These tools were used by plasterer Gene Dundon, the last in five successive generations of plasterers from the Dundon family who worked in Australia from the early 19th to the late 20th century.

Tradesmen generally made their own tools to suit the different needs and purposes of designs for individual commissions and some of the tools in this display were hand-made by Gene's father Leslie Joseph Dundon, a talented wood carver and skilled decorative plasterer.