[Cob] traditional building, sort of

[Damon Howell]

Ed, that phase you're talking about just has to be found by knowing  
how long it takes to dry out. When it is dry enough to dent when you  
smack it with a stick but not when you push it with your hand. If you  
try to smack it down when it's too wet, it'll just stick to the stick.
Gergo, you should soften the previous layer before you start adding  
fresh cob, always. There's not much threat of earthquakes where I  
live in North Georgia, so I'm not as concerned with tying the layers  
together.
Damon





I have a hard time picturing what he is doing. I too throw cob up on
to a wall with a pitchfork, but my cob is too wet to walk on and my
experience has been that once cob splooges out you can not shape it
back the way it should by by slapping it with a 2 x 4. If the cob is
soft enough you can redistribute splooged out cob by putting one hand
on one side and one hand on the other side of a wall, push in and
pull up. This will reshape very wet cob. Hitting cob or slapping it
tends to make it splooge out more.  There might be a phase between
wet and dry where this will work. I have never found that phase, but
I have never looked for it.