Cob: earthen floor finish

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Tue, 31 Aug 1999, Keith Breuker wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
> 
> We are nearing completion of our SB home.  We are wondering about how to
> achieve a smooth finish on our earthen floor.  We have applied four
> coats of Natural Choice penetrating oil sealer #5 and a coat of their
> hardwood floor sealer.  
> 
> The floor still has a sandpaper like feel.  Any thoughts on what to use
> as a wax or finish that will fill the porosity?  Beel are you listening?
> -- 

The usual approach as I recall it is to just use linseed oil mixed with 
a natural thinner for something like seven coats.  It seems to me that
people generally also heated it in a double boiler to get better
penetration (NEVER HEAT IT IF YOU ARE USING A PETROLEUM BASED OR ANY
OTHER FLAMABLE THINNER).  With each coat of linseed oil, you use less oil
and more thinner.  To finish it off, use your double boiler to melt some
bees wax and rub it into the floor (possibly mixed with a heavily thinned 
batch of linseed oil).

I don't know how well this will work with the sealants you have already
applied.  I understand that the booklet on earthen floors put out by the
Canelo project is pretty good, so you might get a copy and take a look at
what it recommends:

    http://www.deatech.com/canelo

There are others on this list who have worked on floors more recently than
I have, maybe one of them will provide better answers or at least more
specific suggestions.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
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