Can you skip drywall taping coats 2+ and just skim coat after embedding tape and letting dry?

Question

I am fairly new to drywall and have watched alot of youtube videos learning. What i have is battens in a mobile home which i am using mesh tape and 90 minute easy sand to fill over VOG, about 3,000 sq ft of walls. My question, with the final intent to skim coat with a uniform surface being the end goal, could I simply not just embed the mesh tape, let dry, and then skim coat, effectively skipping coats 2+ for feathering the joints? To go through all the work to apply multiple coats with sanding and scraping and feathering to just skim coat seems inefficient to me. Seems like for a beginner it would just be easier to do it this way.

Answer 1

You can do that, but you will soon see that you will have to deal with these consequences:

1. A thick layer of drywall compound will take a very long time to dry. Even if you are using hot mud, it will get hard, but it won't be ready to sand. Even if just a little bit is wet, it will clog your sandpaper and get damaged in the process. So by trying to take days off, you will be adding several days of waiting between coats.

2. Because you will be trying to do it in a single coat, you will end up putting too much in some areas and too little in others. The areas with too much will take you forever to sand down, the areas with too little will require more coats, negating the whole purpose of the single thick coat.

3. Cold mud will take forever to dry -- even a week -- if applied in thick layers, but if applied in thin layers, will dry quickly and will be super easy to sand off. Hot mud is a lot harder to sand, regardless if the bag says "Easy Sand" or not.

4. No matter how good you get at it, touchoup is always necessary.

This is why good finishers working with large areas split the work into taping, filling, then 2 feathering coats. When you add up the hours, it's easier and takes less time, and the result looks better.