Finally it is time to start with some serious work. Today the old roof of thr smaller building got removed as well as an ugly concrete beam.
As new tiles will come on top I kept the old ones for other works.
Preparing for the new roof.
Making my plastering tools
Today I decided to do some recycling. Using the wood from the ceiling I tried to find some usable pieces and made my first tools. Now I’ll have to test them to see if they are well done…
Plastering test
Base earthen plaster 60cm x 60cm: 7 liters of sand 1.75 liters of clay
17/04/2020 Second base layer test with local clay as binder: 9 liters of sand and 2 liters of clay and some water.
The first sample shows some small cracks. But according to the big difference in thickness it is not a big surprise: 4-40mm.
Earthen Plaster with lineseed oil
I started saturating some parts of thr plaster with linseed oil.
On the left I used raw undiluted oil. On the right I diluted it by 50% with turpentine oil.
Coffee time
I escaped quarantine and went to do some work. So I prepared one wall on the ground floor for plastering and played with earthen plasters in order to make some testing.
Trying to organise our life with the Coronavirus
As things are a bit complicated I keep playing with clay until more work can be done.
We did it! Electric power has arrived!
Finally, on the 5th of February it was switched on.
It’s pointless to do things according to the rules. Just find the right person and then the miracle just happens.
The temperature is very low and the weather rainy almost snowy. So it’s a good time for playing around.
So, I spend my time doing some testing and refreshing my knowledge. So I prepared a few small objects for some Tadelakt work.
Happy New Year
Well, the weather is cold and still no electricity on-site.
Waiting for better conditions to pickup work again…
Another room cleared of its cement plaster.
Another 34 square meters of plaster removed in 4 days. It’s about 2100 kg which means about 60 kg/m2.
In total I removed 15’000 kg…
Playing around with earth
Like most of the boys I like to play. As I found the earth used to build the house (almost) just under my feet. I prepared a few tests to find out about some of its charachteristics. Doing so I thought about Tadelakt and thought of applying a similar polishing to an earthen ball. The result quite fascinated me…
