I always thought that before you skim coat a wall/ceiling of plasterboard, you need to put skrim over the edges/gaps in the board and pop some filler in the gaps. Its normal straight edge board btw. I've just seen a plastering video, and the chap on there was skimming over the skrim, with no filler in the gaps.
Is this normal? Is the filler only necessary if there are large gaps between the boards?
Thanks in advance
James
If the edges of the board are fixed along their length to the same support, e.g. both screwed to the same piece of timber, then you can butt them up to each other and just scrim and skim over them.
If the edges of the board are not fixed in this way, e.g. they are floating, then it's a good idea to leave a 1/4" gap between the boards and force bonding coat into and through the gap, which will create a good bond between the board edges and reduce chance of subsequent relative movement. Then scrim and skim as before.
I thought you had two available methods:
I didn't think you needed to tape, fill AND skim. But then, I'm no plasterer. I'll be trying some soon, so I'd actually quite like to know the definitive answer!
Christian.
From my experience with square edge board you should tape fill and then skim particulary if the gap between boards is say >5mm. I have noticed this more so on ceilings that where I don`t fill the gaps - the plaster sags slightly where the gap is (presumably because there is more plaster at that point). If I fill first, then the surface is even all the way across & I don`t see any 'sag' points.
Steve
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