I have several walls in my house (built in the early 50s) where the skim-coating - about 1/16 of an inch - is cracking and no longer fixed to the base gypsum (which I believe is competely intack). After doing some reading and searching on the Internet, I learned that I could remove the skim-coating, apply a coat of shellac to the walls, and apply a new skim-coat.
My question is: would I need to reapply a skim-coating? Could I remove the skim-coating from my walls, apply the shellac, and paint without replacing the skim-coat? And, do you have any tricks for removing the skim-coating that is still bonded to the gypsum base? This would be a much easier solution than drywalling over the walls or reskimming.
Thanks in advance.