Lining paper that bubbles is usually the paste
I hung a wall of lining paper on a Saturday in March and left it to dry overnight. On Sunday the face was full of blisters. I thought the roll was cheap. I peeled a bubble. Dry paper, a skin of paste, and a dusty wall underneath. I had mixed the paste thin so it would spread, and I had hung the length as soon as I pasted it. The paper had not soaked. The wall had drunk what little paste reached it. The bubbles were air and a dry bond.
Lining paper is a plain sheet you hang so the paint has a decent face. Paste is what sticks it. Mix it to the thickness the roll asks for, paste the paper, and let it soak until it goes limp and even. Then hang it. If you hang it stiff, it keeps moving on the wall as it takes up water. That movement makes tunnels. If the paste is soup, there is nothing in the tunnel but water, and when that goes the paper lifts. People blame the paper. The paper was doing a lining's job on a starved wall.
Soak time is not a flourish. A thin lining wants a few minutes. A heavier one wants longer. I time it on the first length. If the edges are still dry and curly when I take it to the wall, I wait. If the paste has skinned on the table, I have waited too long. I paste another length. I do not try to revive a skinned sheet with a wet brush. That puts water on a skin and you get bubbles on purpose.
The wall has to be fit to take paste. I brush the dust off. I scrape anything that flakes. A wall you have just filled needs that filler off, not tacky. Filler that shrinks is usually the deep hole is why I do not hang over a crater I packed in the morning. Let the filler go off, sand it, then paste. Caulk that fails is usually a dirty joint is the bead at the bath or the window, not a substitute for lining into a wet corner. I keep lining off a joint that is still greasy or damp.
I also size a thirsty wall. Bare plaster and old distemper drink paste. A thin coat of diluted paste, left to dry, stops the wall stealing the hang. Skip that and every length bubbles in the same spots, usually on the chimney breast and under the radiator.
Winter with the radiators on dries the face too fast. The paper skins, the paste under it is still wet, and you get a drum. I turn the radiator down and leave a window a little open, not a gale on a wet length. Summer with the windows wide open does the same rush on a hot wall. I would rather hang two lengths properly than a whole room that I have to pierce and flatten in the morning.
Skip mixing paste by eye until it looks like milk. Read the ratio. Skip hanging over gloss you have not keyed. Paste sits on it and then lets go. Skip a roller full of lumps from yesterday's bucket. Lumps are bubbles you built in. Mix fresh. Skip smoothing only the middle and leaving the edges. Edges lift first. I work from the centre out, and I wipe paste off the face as I go so I can see the bubbles while I can still move the sheet.
If a bubble shows once it is dry, I do not tear the wall down. A small one I slit, paste behind, and flatten. A wall of them means the paste job was wrong. I strip and start again. I have tried to paint over a field of blisters. The light from the window made every one a map.
I do not need a heavier lining because the last wall bubbled. I need paste mixed as it says, a soak that actually happened, and a wall that is clean and not still shrinking.
If I later add a buy link here, it will be a paid promo.