[Cob] Sarah Kopp is in israel?

[dirtcheapbuilder-Charmaine Taylor]

I remember an Israeli woman on the Strawbale list..Sarah Kopp  .. she 
was really gung ho on her SB home, and  clay- lime plastering it...
but have not hear from her.  I went over to the staw bale archives   at 
http://www.crest.org/   under discussion groups- straw bale   and found 
this email:


She bought some books from me and was so dedicated to learning better 
ways to build... and said the older men in the community know what she 
was talking about ( lime) but everyone made her use cement for 
plasters..and she had some failures  with it.

hope this helps.  her address email may be different from 2000!

Charmaine Taylor Publishing    books at dirtcheapbuilder.com
PO Box 375 Cutten CA  95534 USA  -- 707-441-1632
www.dirtcheapbuilder.com  &  www.papercrete.com
New& Used books: www.biblio.com


kopp at kinneret.kinneret.co.il

the mud I am working with is not so ammenable.  One of the first
 > things I tried with this stuff was soaking it in an excessive amount 
of
 > water, figuring to use the slip ala Huff 'n' Puff to wet down the 
bales
 > prior to slapping on the first coat of plaster.  Here's what happened:
 >
 > I filled a wheelbarrow half full of clay and topped it with water, 
letting
 > it soak overnight.  Then I tried to mix it with the hoe, but it was 
too
 > sticky.  I topped it with water again and left it on the front porch
 > (concrete patio).  Then we had a few days of rain, and I didn't go in 
to
 > work on the house.  When the weather cleared up, that barrow was full 
of
 > water but the clay was sitting on the bottom, still in waxy lumps, 
still
 > impossible to mix with a hoe.  In fact, the waxy lumps are harder to 
break
 > up than the dry ones, which can be smashed with a hammer.  It soaks up
water
 > but the particles don't disperse.  I have tried cutting lumps into 
chunks
in
 > the slip and then mixing, but they re-clump into a big waxy mass.  The
ONLY
 > way I have been able to break this stuff up in such a way as to 
disperse
it
 > through the water is to mash it with sand.
 >
 > The other problem with the soak and dry method id that it take to much
time
 > to produce too small an amount of plaster.  I thought of renting a 
cement
 > mixer, but I am not confidnt it will help disperse the clay in water 
- I
 > imagine the clay tumbling around in there and glomming itself into a
 > gigantic ball - unless perhaps one deliberately added a lot of big 
sharp
 > rocks to break it up?  I don't know - the pug mill idea sounds like 
the
best
 > so far and I am looking for one of those to give it a try.
 >
 > Sarah
 > Tsfat, Israel
 > -----Original Message-----
 > From: BlessMahSol at aol.com <BlessMahSol at aol.com>
 > To: strawbale at crest.org <strawbale at crest.org>
 > Date: éåí ùðé 29 îàé 2000 06:14
 > Subject: Re: Mud plaster tips and bugs
 >
 >
 > >Sarah's comments about her mud being difficult to mix made me wonder 
if
 > >simply making an extremely soupy mix to make mixing easier would be 
OK,
so
 > of
 > >course
 > >I posed the question to the Master Mudder (who is also a new fodder)
(Bill
 > >Steen of course) and his response is below.
 > >
 > >>> In a message dated 5/24/00
 > >>> kopp at kinneret.kinneret.co.il  (Itchy Sarah) writes:
 > >>>
 > >>> Here's my best working system to date:  soak a double amount of 
mud in
 > >>> water overnight.  Add sand and work with hands in the morning - 
there
is
 > >>> absolutely no way to break this stuff up


On Mar 16, 2005, at 4:18 AM, joey cousin wrote:

> 23-year old israeli seeks cob, strawbale, adobe, etc., project in
> israel, would love to help, learn, enjoy
> thanks in advance
> alex
>
> _______________________________________________
> Coblist mailing list
> Coblist at deatech.com
> http://www.deatech.com/mailman/listinfo/coblist
>
>