Cracking up....

[andrewc]

A nasty crack in a stippled artex ceiling. Looks like it's along the edge of one of the boards.   What does the panel recommend to seal the crack before painting over it ?

[rogerzilla]

Decorator's filler (acrylic, NOT silicone mastic).

[BFC]

Do not sand the ceiling down. Unless it has been tested for asbestos and is safe.

Taping a joint can help - use a ceiling repair tape, but the tape may not want to stick to the historical mix of paint and dirt.

Washing down will help and is safe, a solvent for emulsion is iso propanol (strong mix with water, avoid sources of combustion and ventilate well) which will dissolve the top surface of the paint and take the layer of old filth with it and give any filler or tape a chance to bond. Propanol is also a good trick to get marks off painted walls, caution - it also dissolves the dye in blue paper towel.

[Canardly]

There are flexible paints which tolerate fine cracking out there which could help. Give it a clean, tape the joint apply a flexible filler feather it out and use a stipple brush and wallop over. The point regarding asbestos is well made as that was the original Artex bulking agent. Anything before '95 or so should be considered suspect. Consider having the ceiling skimmed?

Some have reported the use of Xtex with a hair dryer being used to safely remove artex as dry scraping is not necessary. It will probably crack again in future. I have a similar problem probably related to a heat source nearby.