Smearing clay slip on a light clay straw wall prior to plastering
Clay slip is an essential material for coating straw bale and light clay straw walls prior to plastering. Basically, it serves as an adhesion coat, essential for getting the first coat of plaster to stick to the wall. There’s not much science to making clay slip, and it’s really fun to smear. Here are a few really simple tips for making and using clay slip for natural walls.
Light clay straw walls are a great surface for finishing using natural plasters. Because the straw-clay is tamped inside of a stud wall, you have a fairly flat surface to start with, compared to something like straw bale which needs a lot of trimming and often extra thick plaster to achieve an even surface.
Here I’ll give some tips and suggestions for how to prepare a light clay straw wall to receive clay plaster, using our recent outhouse project as our demonstration site. In this post, I’ll talk about how to make and install wood trim, which should be the first step in preparing your newly built wall to receive clay plaster.
There are a few tricks you’ll need to ensure a quality job. Read ahead for my method…
Check out this collection of beautifully simple animations of Japanese joinery in action. These are great little demonstrations of timber frame joints interlocking together.
Making chopped straw with a standard lawnmower
Chopped straw is an invaluable ingredient for clay plasters and earthen floors. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a drag to actually make the stuff if you don’t have the right tools or equipment. If you’re building a straw bale wall, you get the benefit of collecting the chopped straw once you shave your walls (which is commonly done with a weed whacker). But if you’re working on a different type of structure, you’ll have to find a way to specifically make the chopped straw.
The ol’ “weed whacker in a barrel” gets really old really quickly, and frankly isn’t that effective. If you don’t have a leaf mulcher or wood chipper, which are far more efficient, you can actually use a lawn mower with a bag attachment to chop all of your straw for plaster. Here’s how to do it.
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This website is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. In 2012, we started offering Natural Building Workshops, so you can learn essential hands-on skills to build your own natural home.
