Cob: stucco question

[Charmaine R Taylor]

Jay said:   I'm guessing that you'd have to be careful with the lime
mortar that  you used to hold this stonework together in order to ensure
the
wall is  strong enough to bear the weight of the house on top of it?


Jay and all, the pure lime mortars ( sand-hair-lime) carbonate slowly,
so setting stones with lime mortar only takes more time from the aspect
of building tall fast.

Brick layers only could go a foot or less, then curing had to happen,
this is why cement became so popular..just keep building, no stopping.

BUT the benfit of the lime mortar is tht it CONTIINUES to get strong
long after the wall is built, which is a good thing.

and in very old stucture with deep pockets of mortar the lime is still
soft due to lack of air carbonation.

So if you plan the site and building times properly you could excavate
the stone trench, start mortaring a layer, then go do something else,
like excavate the interior footprint, then lay more stones, etc. Not a
lot of mortar is needed to bed the stones.

hope this is helpful

Charmaine  Taylor/ Taylor Publishing
PO Box 6985, Eureka CA 95502
707-441-1632
http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com