Cob: Cob plaster on a conventional wall!

[Ocean]

Hey, all!

Checking in from Corvallis...

Regarding plastering conventional housing, for the restaurant we are doing
one wall with a cob plaster bas relief mural, and we just nailed up plaster
lath (extruded metal) over the wall's sheathing and then trowelled on a
simple plaster of red clay, sand and chopped straw.  The plaster on the stud
wall seems to be holding very well.

We sieved pureed clay through a 1/4 inch mesh, and chopped the straw with a
rented chipper/shredder.  The shredder turned one 100 pound bale into about
250 gallons of chopped straw (5 huge bags).  We're also using the same
plaster on the garden wall, about 140 feet long.  We mix the plaster in
large quantities with an electric cement mixer, a ratio of 1 bucket pureed
clay, four buckets concrete sand, 1 bucket chopped straw.  The metal lath
was purchased from the local cement products store, but maybe chicken wire
would work as well.

We'll be posting a website for the restaurant soon, with lots of pictures.
But for now, I've got to get back to the project.  Hey, Kiko has built the
biggest cob oven ever!  Wait till you see this thing!

Peace and Blessings,
Ocean


> From: dtebb <dtebb at alternatives.com>
> Reply-To: dtebb <dtebb at alternatives.com>
> Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 01:21:25 -0800
> To: coblist at deatech.com
> Subject: Cob: earth plasters in conventional housing
> 
> Friends of mine just purchased and gutted an old house, soon to be
> re-drywalled, painted, etc. We plan to do some experimenting with earthen
> plasters at least in one room as a demonstration project here in Vancouver.
> Some of the old drywall will be left in place and in other rooms, the
> drywall or old plaster was striped to the wood lathe.
> 
> We plan to use a traditional interior earth plaster either over the drywall
> or lathe. The plaster that I have worked with is kaolin clay, silica sand,
> straw fiber, mica, pigments and white glue. I would also like to experiment
> with something other than white glue.
> 
> We will begin with some test boards including chicken wire over drywall and
> lathe, directly on drywall and lathe without chicken wire and a rough coat
> (perhaps white glue and sand) on the drywall in place of chicken wire.
> 
> I have only seen one house, Kaki's in Moab, Utah in which the interior of a
> conventional house was completly redone with natural plasters and paints.
> It looked beautiful.
> 
> Does anybody have experience doing this? What did you do? how did it work?
> Your responses are appreciated.
> 
> Ian
> Down to Earth Building Bee
> 
> 
>