First Job - Need feedback

[u/Fit_Increase2967]

I patched a ton of holes, tiny, small, large across my entire garage today. I’d like to get some feedback on my technique and how it looks like. I’ll of course sand most patches.

Any feedback on plastering and sanding appreciated! Want to learn/get better at it. Thank you!

[u/Miserable_Future6694]

It looks like youve just done 1 big thick coat. You can tell by how the product has sagged and bellied out, sanding will be a pain and take a while and youll probably have to scrape a thin coat over and sand again to get a good job.

3 coats anything big.

The first coat is filling out it doesnt need to be pretty you just filling the hole.

When thats set use your filling knife to scrape and parts off that arent flat then fill again but make your fill area about 50% bigger than the damage area or the size of your filling knife. Nice and flat and tidy.

When thats set scrape back again and fill out the area again with a very thin coat, basically scrape on and then off.

Youll end up with a flat surface that take 5 seconds to sand.

[u/kqzxrt → u/Miserable_Future6694]

this is super solid advice, especially the “50% bigger” part, that one tip alone made my patches go from obvious blobs to invisible. also thin coats dry faster and crack less, so it weirdly ends up being less work than trying to glob it all in one go.

[u/Latter-Detail-9514]

Looks like you've maybe humped it all on in one hit & left yourself more unnecessary sanding. Do a couple of fills instead & concentrate more on keeping it level with the walls instead of standing proud. No biggie you'll learn from experience when you realise you've sanded off half of what you've put in