Plasterboard, Solid Plaster and Levels of Finish
Plastering covers two quite different trades that share a name, and a fair amount of confusion on residential projects comes from specifying one and expecting the other. It is worth having wall and ceiling plastering explained before scoping any job, because the distinction determines the substrate, the finish achievable and what the painter afterwards will be working with. The two systems Plasterboard , also called drywall or by the trade name Gyprock in Australia, is a gypsum core faced with paper, fixed to timber or steel framing. The plastering work is in the jointing, which means taping and setting the joints between sheets, filling fastener heads, forming internal and external corners, and finishing so the wall reads as one continuous surface. This is the dominant residential system and has been for decades. It is fast, dimensionally stable, and the finish quality depends almost entirely on the jointing work rather than on the board. Solid plaster , meaning a cementitious or gyp...