Cob Re: Pine straw cob

[Patrick Newberry]

A bit of time ago, I made two cob/adobe bricks, one using wheat straw 
and the other using pine straw. 

My initial report covered the making of the bricks and basically I 
found that the wheat straw was not only more pleasant to work with 
(easier on the hands) the wheat straw due to it's ability to absorb 
water seemed to stick better to the straw.

Well now that the brick have dried, then due to sitting outside in a 
light rain, then dried again, have been inspected. Wear from the rain 
was about the same. As far as strength goes, I found the wheat straw 
to be a bit stronger than the pine straw, but I feel the pine was at 
least adequate. Mind you these were subjective tests of strength, that 
is I broke each brick with my hands by applying increasing strength. 
Each brick was about 2 1/2 inches thick.  

Thus my recommendation would be use strawbale type straw if you have 
it, but pine straw would do in a pinch. 

Pat.
http://www.gnat.net/~goshawk
"There is No Hope, but I may be wrong."