[Cob] Mosaics in the shower

[Jill Hogan]

  We soak prickly pear leaves for a couple of weeks if we can and 
thenstrain the leaves out and add hydrated lime. We leave this for as 
long as possible making sure it is always covered with water. When we 
want to render or plaster we take a bucket of this lime to three buckets 
of a good building sand with a good varient of particle size, and a half 
a bucket of mud as we have a high clay contect here. If the render 
cracks there is too much clay, if it becomes sand to much sand. We 
adjust the mud mixture accordingly. We put our render on with a 
plastering trowel onto a wet wall and it stays beautifully

On 2010/08/17 07:08 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
> You didn't mention sand, but I'm assuming that's part of your render. 
> I am unaccustomed to handling plaster like mediums that are so wet. I 
> tend to want to add some mud to stiffen it up. I did that on my cob 
> oven. It stayed in place ok. But for keeping the weather out I don't 
> think added mud is a good idea. Is your plaster mix pretty wet when 
> you work with it?. I did a little of this with a commercial plaster 
> using a hoc [ or hod I forget ] and trowel and once it hits the wall 
> it starts to stiffen pretty quickly so I guess I could used to it.
> Living and playing outside the box.
>
> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>
> On Aug 17, 2010, at 6:00 AM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>
>>  Using gloves we pick the leaves and then cut them up into a barrel. 
>> Wetop it up with water and leave the leaves brewing for three weeks 
>> at least. We then sive the leaves out and slake our lime int  the 
>> prickly pear water. We get a lovely creamy render mix that very 
>> rarely cracks. I also use this mixture watered down and with salt 
>> added for a paint over my buildings. As we live in the semi desert 
>> with intense heat in summer we get massive expansion and contraction 
>> so paint the buildings every year, just before the rainy season in 
>> winter,  I am in South Africa in what we call the Karoo.
>>
>> On 2010/08/16 10:22 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
>>> Please let us know how it holds up. And sometime let us know how you 
>>> went about harvesting the cactus. We have lot's of that here in New 
>>> Mexico. It's a big part of the animal food chain. People too. The 
>>> fruit is sweet, people make jelly and wine with it. Probably where 
>>> you are too. Are you not in Africa somewhere? You [ and everyone on 
>>> the planet ] might want to take a look at this link.
>>>
>>> http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html
>>>
>>>
>>> Just when you got your mind around the implications of peak oil. 
>>> There is this from...  From the Wilderness:
>>> [Some months ago, concerned by a Paris statement made by Professor 
>>> Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton regarding his concern about the impact 
>>> of Peak Oil and Gas on fertilizer production, I tasked FTW's 
>>> Contributing Editor for Energy, Dale Allen Pfeiffer to start looking 
>>> into what natural gas shortages would do to fertilizer production 
>>> costs. His investigation led him to look at the totality of food 
>>> production in the US. Because the US and Canada feed much of the 
>>> world, the answers have global implications.]
>>>
>>> It's hard to mix cob when there is no water. So it is extremely 
>>> relevant to our passion for mud. It is long and dark and important 
>>> that more people are aware of how these well known forces in nature 
>>> can feed off each other to create the perfect debacle. It just takes 
>>> just a little more heat to get things rolling.
>>>
>>>
>>> Ron
>>> Living and playing outside the box.
>>>
>>> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>>>
>>> On Aug 16, 2010, at 1:47 PM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Ron thanks so much will cover again and agin with  prickly pear 
>>>> juice, have it fermenting at the moment
>>>>
>>>> On 2010/08/16 08:32 PM, Ron Becker wrote:
>>>>> More prickly pear juice. If you want to keep it natural, you could 
>>>>> try a mix of maybe kaolin clay and marble dust or the like as grog 
>>>>> to set it in, would give you a fairly light color.  altho you 
>>>>> might have to work from bottom to top and allow some drying time 
>>>>> to keep it from slumping. Not sure how sticky that mix would be. 
>>>>> There are many glues that are from natural sources that might help 
>>>>> in reducing the setup time. A person with better answers is Carol 
>>>>> Crews in Toas. Great lady. Just search her name on the web she is 
>>>>> very nice to talk to.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ron
>>>>> Living and playing outside the box.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.myspace.com/ron45becker
>>>>>
>>>>> On Aug 16, 2010, at 1:14 AM, Jill Hogan wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>  Hi we want to put mosaics in the shower of Little Cottage. Two 
>>>>>> walls are cob and one is wattle and daub. All three are cover 
>>>>>> with a lime render. We add prickly pear juice to the render which 
>>>>>> acts as waterproofing. What do we use to set the mosaics to the 
>>>>>> wall and do we need to seal them and if we do with what do we 
>>>>>> seal them. Appreciate any advice on this.
>>>>>> Many thanks
>>>>>> Jill
>>>>>> You can see the little cottage on www.mat.org.za
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -- 
>>>>>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>>>
>>>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>>>> www.mat.org.za
>>>> 023 625 1533
>>>>
>>>> "Be the change you wish to see"
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>>>>
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>>>> unsubscribe in the subject. Thanks
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> We have new exciting updates on our web site, check them out.
>>
>> McGregor Alternative Technology Centre "MAT"
>> www.mat.org.za
>> 023 625 1533
>>
>> "Be the change you wish to see"
>> Mohandas Ghandi
>>
>> If you do not wish to receive these mails, email us with unsubscribe 
>> in the subject. Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>
>


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"Be the change you wish to see"
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