To skim or not to skim?

[Idrisdraig]

Garden room - 2.8m x 3.2m
Walls and ceiling lined with tapered edge plasterboard, sealed with PVA, and joints taped with scrim.
The walls only have tapered edges meeting tapered edges. The ceiling has a couple of joins with square edges.

I've had a look at loads of videos on how to finish the walls.
1) Just skim the joins. (The Aussie method?)
2) Use a paint roller to apply a skim coat and then use a trowel to smooth. (The US method?)
3) Use a hawk and trowel to skim everything. (The UK method?)

Opt 1 seems the easiest and least work
Opt 3 looks the hardest and most work

In terms if getting a reasonably smooth, paintable finish (where hopefully the joins don't show) what are the pros and cons for a novice "plasterer", and any tips please?

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Option 3). Novice plastering is only difficult if you do it the old fashioned way with a steel trowel, but it's easy if you use a plastic 'Refina' skimming trowel to finish off.

 

[kevinsmbuk]

I started learning plastering and have now become pretty good, when you first try you will cock it up but you learn more and more. Most important things are angle of trowel to the wall. Not ****ing around with the first coat, just get it on and getting consistency of plaster and timing right.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

1) Just skim the joins. (The Aussie method?)
2) Use a paint roller to apply a skim coat and then use a trowel to smooth. (The US method?)

Paint roller seems to be a DIY bodge - never seen a proper drywaller use it in the USA when I was over there a few years back, or over here, either for that matter (I do a lot of work in commercial interior fit-out where drywalling is very commonly used). Taper edge boards originated in the USA and the best way to deal with the joints is to scrim or better still paper tape (it sands out better) them then layer-up with two or three progressively wider coats of drywall filler sanded down between each coat. The big boys do this with specialist pumps and flat jointing boxes on long runs and use specialist sanders (e.g Festool Planex long reach sander, Vitrex long reach pole sander, etc) with dust extractors - all very expensive - but on smaller jobs you can achieve a lot using a mixing paddle, a mud pan and a couple of different size taping knives. The taping knives need to have the corners ground off round and smoothed out and should be bent so that they are slightly concave/convex across the width. Sanding on smaller jobs can be done using a sanding pole and a hand sander, but it can be a very dirty, gruelling job when done without power tools, where every last defect must be taken out (skimming can hide a multitude of sins). I have seen guys using the plastic Refina hawks that Gerry recommends for the final skim coat on joints and the results are indeed comparable to using a conventional well broken-in "paddle". Corner beads on taped and jointed work should ideally be paper or plastic low profile ones as opposed to the more common high profile metal ones used for skim work. The metal ones which tendency to push the skirting out from the wall surface on the corners which makes getting a decent mitre joint in skirting problematical and often requires goodly amounts of caulking along the tops of the skirting boards by the decorator to hide the gaps

Can't say about the pros and cons of skimming because I'm not the best at it, whereas taping and jointing I do know a wee bit about and it can be faster (but not that much unless you have the specialist kit, I'd say). I personally find it easier to get a good finish taped and jointed even with minimal tools, although horizontal joints can take a bit of extra thought (and are to be avoided wherever possible as they almost invariably show through unless care is taken in boarding-out), but as I said, I'm no plasterer!