Wallpaper over luan/ply

[The Cobbler]

I did not say water, I said moisture.

really it's one & the same, isn't it?

 

[Ultradog MN]

I have a lot of drywall tools but never skimmed a wall.

What are the must have good tools I need for this?

I really like the Vancouver Carpenter on YT so I hope he has a video on this.

Or does anyone have a recommendation for a video?

The basic tools I used for drywall are relatively cheap - considering what some guys have in their tool cabinets.
For me, the two most important ones are a 6" knife and 16" trowel.
I loved Marshaltown trowels. They're kinda like the Snap On of trowels - not stiff and clubby like cheap china jobs.
I did about 90% of my mudding with those two tools.
Of course I had others - lots of different widths of knives to get between door frames, etc but those are the two tools I used the most.
My trowel doubled as my mud pan. I kept the pail of mud on the ladder and dipped out of there, put it on my trowel and dipped from there with the knife if taping - or straight off the trowel if heavy filling or skimming
I tried but never used a corner trowel. think they are worthless.
I also think one thing that most people don't understand is adding water to your mud is neccessary.
You can not use the mud straight out of the pail - except for a very heavy fill like a metal corner bead.
NOBODY has the hand and arm strength to float a thin layer of mud straight out of the pail. No one.
Multiple thin coats - usually 3 of them but 4 or even more if nessessary is the name of the game when skimming.
I added so much water to my mud that it would run off my trowel.
Dont worry about drips. Tarp the floor.
A little mud on you washes off in the shower a lot easier than oil on those guys who work under cars.
DO NOT over fill. It's 10 times harder to sand off than add another coat
Don't try to make it perfect in one or 2 coats. You make it worse doing that.
Leave the inevitable ridges and small goobers. Scrape them off with your knife tommorrow when they're dry.

This is a lot to digest.
I'm self taught. I don't know it all. But I did a lot of it as a remodeler.
I scraped the texture off a lot of ceilings, repaired water damage and skimmed them flat. I fixed really boogered up walls that people screwed up pulling the wall paper off.
Tied drywall to plaster. Used setting type Durabond and floated concrete block walls so they were as smooth as drywall.
I hated it at first but I learned to actually like doing it and to appreciate nicely finished ceilings and walls.
So did my customers.

 

[The Cobbler]

Well said @Ultradog MN . I echo most of your post verbatim