[Cob] building with stones, was: Re: composition of clay mortar for urbanite

[Predrag Cvetkovic]

Ocean wrote:
>Ianto tells a story of medieval lime mortared
> foundations where upon deconstruction, workers found the lime to still
> be in putty form, after hundreds of years!



Hello Ocean and all list friends
In a book about painting materials a friend of mine found about three ways
of building with stones.

The best way: A mixture of grind fresh quicklime, sand and grind quartz is
put between stones and should be watered during 3 days. High temperature
melts quartz that makes excellent connection between stones. In that book
they say that way of building provides very dry walls (or foundations).

According to that book, less effective way is to use fresh slaked lime for
the mortar - we make fresh slaked lime every day and the third way is if
lime is not fresh.

I will highly appreciate any input.

Best regards
Predrag