[Cob] just cob until it feels right

[Amanda Peck]

All other things being equal, well, yes, your idea holds up.  But both 
"sand" and "clay" can be quite different things.

But when I mix here, with store-boughten (fine, pure, sharp) sand and pretty 
pure clay, it feels right with 3 sand to 1 clay.  At a friend's house site, 
it was 2 (pretty coarse) sand with 1 (right sandy) clay.
..............

Karl wrote:
while attending a cob party (me learning to cob) a question arose. if the 
sand is course do you need to add more or less clay proportionally than fine 
sand?

borrowing a frequent analogy
if
the clay is mortar
the sand is brick
the straw is rebar

then, logically
if the brick is really large, less mortar would be used to assemble a given 
wall?

or does that not hold true in this case?

anyway we just mixed until it felt right--which ultimately "is" the right 
answer since these ingredients don't have (laboratory level of quality 
control standards) and adaptability to different site ingredients is what is 
most important.

but, the question still remains--does my adopted analogy hold up?

i'm sure that i'm over-thinking the day but these kind of unanswered 
questions keep me awake.

k-)


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