I was very fortunate to recently catch wind of Carpenters from Europe and Beyond, an incredibly valuable traditional carpentry resource from France’s Ministry of Culture. The website is host to a wealth of information about the history of carpentry, the people who honed the craft, and videos of modern day traditional carpenters continuing to work [...]
Posts under ‘Tools’
Finish Earthen Plaster: Part 2: Applying Earth Plaster
Once you have mixed your deliciously smooth finish earthen plaster, it’s time to apply it to make your cob walls shine. It’s a seemingly simple process, but there is a certain hidden finesse that will make the job easier with time and practice. I’m no expert, but here’s how I went about plastering the interior [...]
Building a lean-to trestle
Over the weekend, I built a lean-to trestle. The cob walls are getting too tall in some spots to work from the ground. I’ve been using a long bench that Thomas kindly lent to me, but I needed at least one other (and taller) option to reach high up.
I based this trestle off of a [...]
Cobbers thumbs
The great thing about cob is its low-tech nature. You don’t need many fancy tools to work with the medium. Cobbers thumbs are useful wooden hand tools for pounding cob into place on walls, and “stitching” the material together. The fat, blunt ends are good for the pounding, and the pointed ends are useful for [...]
Human-powered transportation
Today, Thomas and I went out to the land to collect and transport some of the pin oak trees I’ve cut to the village. We went out with the infamous ‘Cynder cart’ (a homemade handcart), which would serve as our sturdy, two-wheeled transport vehicle.
First, we had to drag the 30 foot long trees out to [...]
