[Cob] coating The mobile home...

[dirtcheapbuilder-Charmaine Taylor]

On Apr 7, 2006, at 6:27 PM, Teresa Banks wrote:

> Hi Lee,
>
>   I don't think you are as wacky as some have perhaps made you feel.  
> I used to live in an old mobile home also, and if I had owned it, I 
> would have been exploring the idea of covering it with cob also, 
> perhaps.
>
>

  On the thin metal walls  Lee will actually be adding a clay finish  
plaster  rather than  heavy cob  I would think..... it cant be more 
than a couple inched thick or it will start pulling off of the walls.

   I have used  ladies dress netting ( an open weave polypropylene) as 
the fiber layer attached to old drywall before plastering with lime..

You can also use onion sacking,   cut open, flattened, or other sacking 
that holds vege, potatoes, etc.

my latest "find" is the   action-back  mesh webbing that is on the  
back of carpet. I go to the new carpet store, and in the  dumpster van 
are all the  long  strips and left overs

  the grid of mesh on the back of carpeting is polypropylene, is free, 
clean and new, and I get dozens of yards of it by just pulling it away 
from the carpet.  widths of 6"-15" are average.  ( more than 20" wide 
is too hard to pull off )

This mesh would be attached tightly  to the  metal walls, and a thin 
layer of clay , or clay-lime  smeared over, then more layers can be 
added using more netting or sacking. The open weave is important so  
burlap doesnt work as well.

there is a guy in TX building a ferrocement home, he used the dress 
netting as the final fiber layer to do a thin finsh coat of cement on 
his walls.  Netting provides a  surface grid, and gives "tooth" to any  
alien surface... since cob-clay will not stick straight to the metal, 
an in-between is needed.

I did this to make a flower planter  using a cast off  metal dryer 
drum.      dress netting is only .70 a 6' WIDE yard, so it goes a long 
way, and is perfect for plastering on   (non natural)  walls



Charmaine Taylor Publishing
www.dirtcheapbuilder.com
PO BOX 375 CUTTEN CA 95534
Tel:  707-441-1632   Venetian Plaster DVD in stock