Ceiling has been plasterboarded with 12.5mm tapered boards. I'm a wee bit fed up though as joiner has not used full sized boards, he has halved them (probably for ease of putting up) which means I have double the amount of joins. The ceiling looks like a jigsaw.

I wasn't intending getting the ceiling plastered, I was only going to tape and fill myself but the amount of flat edge joins are putting me off. I can fill the tapered joins easily and do a good job on those, but I'm concerned about getting a good result on the flat joins where there is no area for the filler to lie iyswim.

Should I chamfer all the square edges with the likes of a Stanley knife, or just tape and fill as I would with the tapered areas?

Or given the amount of joins, would it be better to give in and get the whole ceiling plastered? Normal practice in this neck of the woods is always just to tape and fill.

If the advice IS to plaster....should I tape and fill all the joins first anyway?

Hi Ali tbh if it was me id just get it plastered rather than faffing around taping,filling,sanding etc.. Especially if there is double the amounts of joins. It probably be quicker just to plaster it..I have heard of some people cutting back square edge p/b so they can tape and fill,never done it myself though.

Yes you will need to tape the joins before plastering,but the plasterer will probably do this,thats if your not going to plaster it yourself.

Good luck with it ali

My advice would be to have it plastered. You should have used tapered boards if you wanted to tape and fill. I wouldn't recommend tampering with the boards because it will take you ages and would be very surprising if you achieved a decent finish after all your work - that's if the board strength and integrity was enough to stand the test of time. I would also doubt whether you would get good adhesion to the board when you strip off the paper cover. What size of ceiling is it? I feel it would really pay you in the long run to have someone plaster it for you. The fact that the boards are up and taped ready for the plasterer will make it easier and less expensive.

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Thanks guys.

rubber hammer......tapered boards were used, but there are lots of straight edge joins now as well, where the joiner cut them in half (or thirds in some areas).

The ceiling is roughly 5mtrs x 3 mtrs.

I wouldn't consider even attempting to plaster it myself. I'd have to get someone in. Like I said earlier, the done thing here is to tape and fill, most houses are not plastered now so I suspect I wont be able to get someone decent on recommendation. :(

There's new houses getting built near us, I might go see if there's a plasterer there who could do it.

Cheers for the advice.

Ali - given your previous experiences - ask to see some of his work first as well

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Sorry ali. I should have gone to specsavers....and so should the guy who put the boards up

For what it's worth I'd still have it skimmed. You'd probably need to budget about £100 or so though, depending on what area you're in.

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I always blame my tools