[Cob] cob mortar/filler

[Elizabeth Evans]

I once lived in a house like this where instead of rough-cut planks, the
walls were covered in log slabs, the slabs cut off a log when it is squared
up for milling. One side was rounded and the other flat.  They were nailed
on inside and out, with quarter-round molding nailed in the gaps (instead of
battens) on the inside. The house was a rental, so we never tried mud in the
gaps. Earlier residents, or perhaps the owner, had tried silicon sealent,
most of which peeled loose and fell out during the time we lived there. We
ended up stuffing a little pink fiberglass insulation into the gaps where
you could actually see daylight, but the house was always drafty and hard to
heat.

If I had owned the house, I definitely would have tried mud.

The term you want for this process is "chinking." Here's a web site that
give some explanation of it. They recommend NOT including lime, because it
prevents the chinking materials from swelling and moving along with the wood
as it expands and contracts with moisture.

http://www.ourloghouse.com/cgi-bin/olh.pl?00503

You might also try looking on the national park service website -- they have
a number of historic structures to maintain and they use authentic methods
whenever possible.

An old-time book on log cabins might have more info...I found the site above
with the search terms *how to mud chinking.

*Hope this helps...it is a bit off-topic for the cob list, so we don't want
to stray off into a discussion on log-building.





On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 6:26 AM, Frederick Eugene Grinder III <
fgrinder at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> First, thanks for making this list so great, and many thanks to the
> moderator!
>
> I've got a small cabin whose walls are made of rough-cut lumber planks, run
> vertically and nailed to a frame, like a barn?.  On some walls, the gaps
> between the planks are covered on the exterior by strips of wood (name for
> this style?), but on other walls you can see right through the gaps.
>
> My plan is to fill the gaps with mud.  We have lots of clay on site, and
> the
> results of a few test areas look promising.  I'm considering different
> additives to the soil, like sawdust or sand.
>
> Has anyone here tried this?  What additives are used, and in what
> proportions?  I realize proportions are very much dictated by soil texture,
> so, what techniques can I use or what signs can I look for to determine
> proper proportions?
>
> Thanks!
> Gene
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