I was told that the pre-made green spackle was for doing drywall, and the pre-made blue was for skim coating that is sold at Home Depot. The thing is, the green bucket has printed on it All Purpose, while the Blue has Dust Control. The Dust Control one doesn’t say anything about using it for skin coat. I mentioned this to the friend who told me what to purchase, and he said “Everyone knows to use the blue for skin coat” even though it doesn’t have that printed on the bucket.
I can’t find any place to validate this information. Also, what happens if by mistake you use the green when you wanted to do skin-coating? Is that a problem?
Blue cap with a greyish bucket is lightweight general purpose w/dust control.
The green is physically heavy and has more adhesive to it. If you are only going to use one it is the preferred. It’s dense stuff. It’s pretty much always used for tape joints. It can be used for top coats but it sands harder so guys will move to the lightweight once the taping is done.
The blue lightweight stuff is physically lighter and kinda airy in comparison. It gets used for the top coats and skim coats. It’s used in applications where you plan to be sanding it. It sands faster.
The blue cap w/dust control sands with less air born dust. as the sand it it drops straight down rather than the usual smoke haze created by sanding.
An actual dry wall company doesn’t usually use pre-mix, they’ll buy bags and create mixes to their needs.
It’s carpenters and general contractors and home owners that use the buckets.