Fun with earthen (mud!) plasters; basics1
Channel: Kiko Denzer
Date: 2021-02-04

These (unedited) process videos show how to apply mud plaster to an experimental, lightweight, thin garden wall: lots of basic technique. The first three focus on troweling the first, rough pass. The fourth focuses on floating that layer to remove tool marks and blend surfaces. The fifth shows mother and son working together — home-school skill development! And fun w/mom. Whether you call it wattle and daub, mud-on-lath, what-have-you, the inspiration and examples come from all over the world: Europe, Japan, Africa, S. America. Here it's solving a time/labor shortage: When we moved onto the property, we started a massive adobe garden wall. The plan was to store heat to create a micro-climate for fruit trees, as well as privacy. However, adobe demands material and time; the wall and trees are a bit far apart for heat transfer, and it turns out that light may be equally or more important than mass when you’re trying to encourage fruit set — and that’s a solution that we can get from lime-wash or lime plaster on almost any surface… So. How to finish quick, given an existing foundation, wire fence, and t-posts. Hmmm... The experiment consists of bamboo strips tied onto the t-posts to define the basic curvature and height. Some curved, split locust branches that I had lying around made the base. I tied scrap lumber vertically onto the bamboo to give the wall thickness, then attached horizontal lath to the vertical strips. I ran out of wood lath, so I used baling twine as well. For the roof, I cut 2x material to match the curve, screwed the resulting roughly 2” wide curves to the verticals to make a firm base for a simple shed roof that I finished w/a bunch of old shingles. That alone made a decent wall/privacy screen, but the plastering happened when some friends asked about getting some time in the mud. Kailinn brought her 4-year old and camera phone for the second  day, and took these videos (or loaned me the camera). Thanks, Kailinn! 1st of 5 (unedited) process videos of applying mud plaster to an experimental, lightweight, thin garden wall. I hope they might be useful just as an example of basic technique. The first three all focus on troweling technique for the first, rough pass. Then there’s one that focuses on floating the first layer to remove tool marks and blend surfaces. And one I took of Kailinn and her son, as an excellent example of home-school skill development. Whether you call it wattle and daub, mud-on-lath, what-have-you, the inspiration and examples come from all over the world: Europe, Japan, Africa, S. America. Here it's solving a time/labor shortage: When we moved onto this property, we started a massive adobe garden. The plan was to store heat to create a micro-climate for fruit trees, as well as privacy. However, it requires a lot of material and time, the wall ended up a bit far from the trees, and I have since learned that light may be equally or more important than mass when you’re trying to encourage fruit set — and that’s a solution that we can get from lime-wash or lime plaster on almost any surface… So. How to finish it quick? There's already a foundation and  pre-existing wire fence and t-posts. Hmmm... The experiment consists of bamboo strips tied onto the t-posts to define the basic curvature and height of the wall. Some curved, split locust branches that I had lying around made the base. I tied scrap lumber vertically onto the bamboo to give the wall thickness, then attached horizontal lath to the vertical strips. I ran out of wood lath, so I used baling twine as well. For the roof, I cut 2x material to match the curve, screwed the resulting roughly 2” wide curves to the verticals to make a firm base for a simple shed roof that I finished w/a bunch of old shingles. That alone made a decent wall/privacy screen, but the plastering happened when some friends asked about getting some time in the mud. Kailinn brought her 4-year old and camera phone for the second  day, and took these videos. Thanks, Kailinn!