hey regi boy
I allways brush the last 2 trowels as long as u have a decent smooth brush , same with walls on a wall its much easier to brush the bottom footor so of the wall and then trowel up long stroke does away with watermarks reason being it saves splash water marks on your cielings ( making the ceilings or walls look better)its also easier to do this and allso saves on mess on floor, it should take very little water on new work to get a perfect finish
everyone has different ways of plastereing, most site timeserved plasteres have different methods to handymen/ and college training course workers, because its like driving you do it the so called right way to pass your test, then with practice you do it the easier way and the difference between an experienced site plasterer on new builds and a training course worker is a million miles apart,
35 years ago I started a 5 year apprentiship for plastereing and like most apprentices we had to go to collage 1 day a week for 5 years to learn the trade, but the truth of it is we where not taught for the real world of plastereing, example to float and set a wall we where taught to screed top/ bottom and sides with a st edge feather then derby, then fill in feather edgind , then complete the wall by useing the derby, then rub up, what a load of bollox,
the truth is by the time u put your 4 screeds on a wall the screeds it start to take up making it more difficult to get straight edge and get perfect
the way I was taught in the real world on site was probaly 3/4 times faster you coat up say 4m of float derby it, and that was it, finished and repeat that till the wall/ room was complete no st edge needed, if you where good enough it came natuarly,unless you had big hollows in blockwork,then you would need to check with st edge, then rub up, 3/4 times faster than I was taught at collage, and better job because as it was worked in soft with a derby,
we were taught the same way to skim ceilings 4 screeds come on where is the sence in that,
they used to drum into us at collage to work dry corners if possible on walls and if u had to use wet corners allways use an angle trowel and crossgrain float ffs come on, well in the real world u complete a room from left to right all wet corners never ever dry, and as for useing an angle trowel why waste time if you can do it just as neat with a sach brush,
another big thing at the time was the amount of time they put into plaster cast work as in make your own coving or match up to victorian cove in old houses listed buildings ect. we spent hours and hours over the 5 years learning how to do this i think i was on a job once in 35 years where I had to remould some cove and match it up, and even then I was shown an easier way to do it
