Plastering - tips for skimming a large ceiling

[Porker]

I am about to embark on a ceiling that is a little larger than I have tackled before. The plan is to break it up into sections and a colleague has suggested feathering the joins out and keeping them damp with a PVA mix until I tackle that section. Does this sound OK?

Also when taping the plasterboard joints, what do you do at the join with the wall. Some people say to tape with a fold, others say no? (There is no coving going in so I don't want any real cracking here).

 

[pops]

how big is the ceiling?

wot sort of background are you plastering too ?

how confident are you in plastering ?

if your plastering the walls then yes fold the fibatape into the corners this should stop most of the cracking

 

[Porker]

4m x 6m

Plastering onto new plasterboard. (Old lath ceiling collapsed)

Confident on smaller areas. Have done quite a few smaller rooms.

One reason I ask is that I have also been told that if folded over the tape can pull with movement and leave worse cracking along the top of the wall. (Never seen this though).

 

[jbonding]

this was the case years ago when they used hesian skrim to tape the angles and with any movement it was too strong and a bigger crack would appear this is why they changed to bandage and then it got easier with fibre tape. if your not doing the walls cut it back with a sharp stanley knife and use a flexible calk just incase.

 

[pops]

when plastering a ceiling this size on your own make sure the room isn`t hot, nice and cool but no drafts, make sure the room is as empty as possible, make sure you have everything you need before starting to mix up ie plenty of water, plaster and all your tools, with a ceiling that size you should about 3 bags of thistle multi finish, do`nt mix it to stiff otherwise you`ll find it going off to quickly, it should be roughly just under a bucket of water to a bag of thistle, start from edge and work along the wall edge on the longest side, 6mx4m isn`t that big really if you think about it its less than a small room just on the ceiling and its smaller than doing the opposite walls in the same room

 

[Porker]

Thanks for the tips. The jobs been done now and I am very pleased with it. Only problem is my arm aching as I'm not used to it, and still had to move pretty fast on the first coat to get it flat enough for the second before it went off. Second coat was fine though.