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Skim Coating Drywall — Tips

sunedog | Posted in Construction Techniques on October 6, 2003 04:24am

Hey Folks,

Sunedog here. This is my first post so take it easy on me.  I’m an reasonably serious DIY’er.  Built my own house, etc.  But I’m not an accomplished mudderer or plasterer.   I removed wallpaper in my kitchen and, even though I followed just about all the advice I could find, I still had a tough time and dug up the drywall a good bit.  I need to skim coat the whole surface.

 Any tips for skim coating drywall?

I had a wild idea and need your feedback.  Since I assume the intent is to get a uniform thickness of mud on the wall, I thought about covering the whole wall with tile mastic using a trowel with very small notches (maybe 1/16th inch).  After it sets up thoroughly, I could fill the grooves with drywall mud, pushing hard, but leaving a uniform thickness.  I would use an unsanded product like Double Duty.  Don’t think I want sand in this equation.  Any of you guys ever try this? 

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  1. ccal | Oct 07, 2003 09:14am | #1

    use a 12" knife and put it on then scrape it back off again. You dont want it thick at all, it should be so thin that it drys in a few minutes. You can put it on with a paint roller and then use the knife, but you want it to be thin coats.

  2. Fbart | Oct 07, 2003 09:33am | #2

    I have done this with a cement trowel since it is not curved like a drywall trowel it leaves a nice flat surface.  The first coat usually picks up some paper bits which make streaks in the mud.  Pick these out as best you can, sand before the second coat, and then procede as you would with any other medding job.  Good luck

    Fred

  3. BobKovacs | Oct 07, 2003 01:16pm | #3

    I did four rooms in my house, and here's the method I used.  I took a 12" knife, and ran a single pass down the wall, pressing hard to leave as little mud as possible.  I then moved over 10" and ran another pass down the wall.  I repeated that process around the room until the whole room was striped with mud.  I let it dry overnight, knocked down any ridges at the edges of the stripes, and then ran new passes on the bare spots.  The previous day's mud guided the knife, allowing me to fill in the voids to the proper depth. 

    As someone said, you'll pick up little pieces of paper, fuzz, etc., which you'll have to go back and touch up, but overall, I got a nice flat wall with little effort.

    Bob

  4. sungod | Oct 07, 2003 05:53pm | #4

    Take your trowel and bend it so there will be an invisible crown.

    Mud first, if the surface is smooth, with crown up with mud in the middle of blade, it eliminates blade lines.

    Crown down to mud the majority of the surface.

    After each coat drys DO NOT SAND.  Take a clean trowel and in one easy stroke scrape off the lumps and bumps.  Scraping saves hours of sanding.  Sand only last.

    Use topping compund it levels itself a little bit.

    1. xMikeSmith | Oct 08, 2003 02:38am | #5

      what r u guys doin ?

      get some blue board , some Diamond Plaster or Imperial,

       a 1/2" drill and a mixing paddle...  get a hawk, and a 4x4 piece of plywood to dump your mix on, tape your joints.... plaster your joints..

       and skim coat your plaster with a plaster trowel...

      try a couple closets.. fix your boo-boos with joint compoundMike Smith   Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore

  5. Tapcon | Oct 08, 2003 02:44am | #6

    A small dose of dish soap in the top coat will help the finish glide on nice and slick.

    Then again you could use Floridas answer to poor finishing; heavy splatter knockdown. Man, I hate that s#!t

    CARPEnter DIEM
  6. Zano | Oct 08, 2003 03:03am | #7

    First prime it with Zinsall, I think it's called that, made by Bullseye.  If you don't use this, that mud will will loosen the weak facepaper on the sheetrock and then it becomes a nightmare.  Get a paint roller, 3/8" nap, thin the mud well and roll it on - presto, a skim coat!

  7. RW | Oct 08, 2003 03:05am | #8

    Aw heck. Everyones giving you decent advice. Try something new. I had a paint rep tell me about this and I thought he was off his rocker until I tried it. He was hawking (no pun intended) this big squeegee looking thing called "The Magic Trowel." yeah, okay. Whatever. It's a squeegee, but a real soft one. I had a big skim job to do - just like your situation. The wall paper came off and the guy removing it, man. He's going in the books of famous trunk slammers. Huge gouges. I filled the bad stuff with durabond. But for the skim, I cut down a bucket of mud with enough water I could roll it on with a heavy nap roller.

    Bear in mind, I had all the trowels there. I was ready to do it my normal way, just thought I'd give this a whack and see how screwed up it really was.

    I covered about 4' of wall at a time. Then before the stuff sets, you just wipe over it with steady pressure on this whiz bang trowel. I'll be darned if it didn't work and go fast as all get out. Barely any sanding at all.

    After futzing around with it some, I decided I liked Pro Form topping compound the best for this. It cuts down good and it's nice and creamy. It smooths out real nice. But I gotta be honest. This thing looks so silly I about wanted to hide it in my shirt walking out of the store, just in case I saw someone I knew. Kind of like buying a Dewalt tool.

    "The child is grown / The dream is gone / And I have become / Comfortably numb "      lyrics by Roger Waters

    1. sunedog | Oct 08, 2003 04:10am | #9

      Thanks for all the tips!  Please keep them coming.  Sounds like my 2 step idea with a notched trowel is not worth the effort.

      BTW, here's a link to a site with The Magic Trowel: http://www.texmaster.com/index.html

      I did a search under all of the sources in the "How To Buy" page, but didn't find it anywhere.  At least you can see what it looks like.

      Sunedog

      1. FastEddie1 | Oct 08, 2003 04:26am | #10

        Your notched trowel idea isn't that far off, but you would want to use the absolute smallest notches available, then go over it with a wide blade to smooth it all.  Or if you want to experiment, go ahead and let the first coat dry like you said, then fill in the grooves with a smooth trowel.  It would be unorthodox, but would probably work, as long as the first ridged coat was very thin.  In your original post I thought I read that you were going to use floor mastic as the first coat...I hope not.

        Do it right, or do it twice.

      2. 444tdi | Oct 08, 2003 04:56am | #12

        use either a cement trowel or dry wall trowel to skim coat.  While dry wall mud is still damp, use a 12 inch wide ultra fine paint bruch to lightly skim over the wet mud to eliminate almost all sanding.  It may take two coats if gouges are deep.

    2. User avater
      Rugby | Oct 08, 2003 04:30am | #11

      So you got one of them squeegees on steriods too.  I was rather surprised it worked as well as it did.

      .....but was that yellow tool comment really neccessary?  Man, that hurts. ;)

  8. dmw | Oct 11, 2003 09:12am | #13

    You've got a lot of good advice. The magic trowel sounds interesting might be worth trying. I've always used a 14" straight trowel with regular joint compound. For sanding, I use a pole sander with a sanding screen (silicone carbon) which won't load up, and you can use both sides. I've done whole house with only 3-4 pieces of the stuff. Good luck...

  9. butch | Oct 11, 2003 12:10pm | #14

    Saw that magic trowel at my Sherwin-Williams, so if your interested in getting one you might check with them. 

    Thanks , for the other posters on the heads up about the trowel, I saw it a SW, and wondered if It really worked.

    So next time I've got a lot of drywall repair, I'll probably give it a try.

  10. richardi | Nov 17, 2013 10:58pm | #15

    Skim coat

    Suppose any and all of these techiques work. How long before the skim coat can be primed.

    Is the a special prime?

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