Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Not Your Ordinary Corn Part 2


Once the cob was made, it was time to build!

First things first, spray the previous dry layer with water and let it soak a bit.

Then create bricks from the mamma terd hunk-o-cob.

The process was really quite simple since we were only filling in a few holes and finishing up a couple sections of walls Randy had not completed.

There are a few guidelines to follow, as all architecture goes... such as starting the bottom at a specific thickness and slowly getting thinner towards the top. Or only adding 18ish inches every day.
Sprinkling jars here and there was my job.
The weight of the cob causes the walls to bow out a bit, so you don't want to add too much.

There is a sewing step that requires stabbing the layers with a tapered stick which helps them bind together a bit more... Very similar to scoring in ceramics.

After being a ceramicist in college, I felt really comfortable with the material and it made me long for clay again.


Before y After!!!


Before y After!!

The last thing we will do, hopefully next weekend, is fill in some final holes and create a thinner weather-proofing type material (with raspberries!!) to rub over the entire outside.
I can't wait!!

2 comments:

TexasDeb said...

Lovely cool pic of you close up with the hat on. Very Jackie O although I somehow doubt she ever helped build a chicken coop.

So, do you do anything after you punch those holes in? Fill them with anything or just let them be?

I have this fantasy about keeping a laying hen or two in the back yard. We do have racoons around here though so not sure it would be safe to try that without a coop in place. Watching with interest....

PassivePastry said...

you leave the holes be. :) They are so the next layer will fall in to them a bit and help the next layer stick better.