Conite???

http://mileslewis.net/australian-building/pdf/07-cement-concrete/7.09-additives.pdf

p 7.09.12

By 1910, however, the idea of applying a cement stucco to chicken wire on a timber

frame had been adopted by the local architect Harry Marks at Toowoomba,

Queensland, and this, while not important in  its own right, was a harbinger of

'Gunite' and other such methods used at later dates. In Tasmania Bernard Walker's

house 'Wylam' at Sandy Bay, Hobart, of 1916, was followed by a number of houses

after World War I in using stucco over either wooden lathing or chickenwire. By

the 1920s this stucco on chickenwire was widely used in rural Victoria, and cement

over wire netting, is said similarly, to have been used for Spanish bungalows in New

Zealand in the 1930s.

In Australia generally the technique was known as 'Conite', an American name which

may or may not have been used at the outset.  In 1947 the Victorian Housing

Commission  reported that Conite on 'a special wire mesh', and finished in white

cement, was proving very successful, especially in northern areas, and had been used

at housing estates at Wangaratta,  Dimboola, Shepparton and Mildura. Clifford

Lloyd described Conite on the basis of United States practice:  first of all wires were

stapled horizontally across the studs at nine inch (225 mm) intervals, then stout

building paper was laid over these, then wire netting was fixed over that, presumably

also by stapling.  The cement render was placed over this, and the sand required by

the American specification was translated into Melbourne terms by  Lloyd as two

parts of Frankston to five parts of Cardinia Creek or Kooweerup sand, passed through

a 1/8th inch (3 mm) sieve.  Some architects, according to Lloyd, sought to improve the

system by using expanded metal rather than netting, but this was not as good because

it required more joints, and the extra stiffness was unnecessary.  In America,

according to Lloyd, 'many of the film stars' palatial homes are built of this …'

In New Zealand a similar effect was produced by the use of 'Steeltex', an imported

reinforcing mesh with a kraft paper backing, used as a base for stucco finishes.