[Cob] Limewash

[Amanda Peck]

Jane's got more experience than I do, so I'd assume she's right there.

Shannon said that you want builder's lime, type N or S.  I've never seen 
anything except "mortar mix" labled either in my part of the country.  I get 
to buy "hydrated lime" from one or another farmer's supply.  Same stuff of 
course.  What I get is nice and white.  (I could always buy 
the--EXPENSIVE--food grade pickling lime in 2 pound boxes--the Indians I 
spent some time with in Mexico didn't do that, bought the big bags, same as 
I do now)

Never tried a limewash, but the chinking mix I used in log walls with a fair 
a mount of lime in it set up--at least to the point it couldn't be worked 
any more, maybe not to the point you'd want to walk on it,  within day or 
two.  But I have a feeling that the logs were still doing a bit more 
shrinking--oops.  It's never going to set up like, melamine.

Seems like Charmaine sometimes limewashes with just the saturated solution 
from the top of her tubs of soaking lime.
................

Jane replied to Roger:

It seems like
 >> the result is the same whether I wet the wall ahead of time or not...
 >> both cases end with a wall coated in lime.  Both whiten nicely, but
 >> neither seem to harden.

As far as I know, hardening takes a very long time, several weeks or even
months. I have heard it reccomended that you apply limewash in the spring
so it can dry slowly before the summer heat, and then harden over the
summer, before the rainstorms of the autum. That applies to our climate
(temperate and rather wet), at least.

Jane