Plaster Skim Coating Recap

Well, I posted just last week about our first adventures in plastering and wanted to share about the couple things we learned...and I think there would be tons more to learn had we wanted a smooth coat or had been plastering a large area. 
1. try to avoid using old plaster.  We did use old (2 years but never opened) plaster but felt we sot of got around it by sifting the plaster to remove any little clumps (we couldn't see any but plaster has a way of changing over time with even just moisture in the air).
2. Be prepared for it to look like crap at first pass SO I would recommend doing a very small area to start so that you have plenty of time to go back over the plaster and work with it for a little longer.

can't really even see the cracks in the picture but there are a bunch of them-probably around a couple millimeters wide.

3. Don't use too much water.  It takes longer to try and will form cracks.  Steve did in one area on the second coat and the next morning we found cracks right there.  Steve plans to chip that part out and put on a new coat but I suppose you could probably just patch it with spackle.  We'll see how that goes.