https://youtu.be/8Bnjl6unKhw
I was excited to find this video documentary about Japanese clay plaster as it’s currently being practiced by sakan (a.k.a., traditional plasterers). From what I gather, clay plaster is a niche craft in Japan, but the tradition has been unbroken for hundreds and hundreds of years. It’s not practiced as widely as it once was, yet the quality of the work that is done is exceptional. It’s serious business, and absolutely beautiful and inspiring too.
Read More
We recently wrapped up our September Natural Building Essentials Workshop. Fourteen folks came out to participate, traveling from Texas, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, and beyond. It was an enjoyable ephemeral community for the week — everyone was eager to jump in the mud and help out. I enjoy this workshop format because it’s a chance to spend some quality time with the basic building blocks of a natural home — clay, sand, and straw.
Read ahead to view a photo gallery of the workshop!
Read ahead for some tips on how to make these ergonomic Japanese plaster hawks
Japanese-style plaster hawks are a comfortable, ergonomic alternative to the typical hawk design you come across in the states. Best of all, you can very easily make your own with only a few basic materials and customize the proportions to your liking. Here’s how you make your own Japanese plaster hawk.
The reward of building is seeing the progress and the character of a house take shape. This most recent plastering project has been no exception. Back when I saw the house for the first time in January, the walls were bare and the floor was gravel. It’s come a long way since then.
This photo sequence shows the three major phases of the plastering work we completed inside — bare faswall, the initial clay base coat and trim, and the finished product. What a difference!
I recommend viewing this image enlarged for the a fuller effect.
Plaster complete!
The big stretch of my spring clay plastering job is over now. It comes with a huge sense of relief, some achey shoulders, and a definite sense of accomplishment. It’s hard to remember that when we showed up to this house site two months ago, it was bare block walls. Now the space has really come to life.
Applying the clay plaster base coat to faswall block
This spring is all about plaster. I’ve been hired to complete the plaster work on a faswall block home in western Kentucky, including the clay plaster interior and a lime plaster exterior. There’s 3500+ total square feet of wall between the interior and exterior, which is no slouch. I just returned home from completing the clay and lime base coats with our crew. It was a big push and I’m glad to be done… well, at least until it’s time to go back and apply the finish, anyway.
Read on to see some images of the base coat clay plaster on faswall block!
Make your own plaster practice board with a scrap of plywood
You don’t need to build a natural home to experience the joy that is natural plaster. If you want to experiment with clay and lime plaster, you can get some valuable practice with some very simple scrap materials. Read ahead and I’ll show you how.
A student floats a creamy layer of clay plaster during one of our workshops
In my recent series of posts, I’ve described the process for building and finishing a light clay straw wall. First there was mixing the light clay straw itself and stuffing it into wall cavities. Then I discussed how to prepare for plaster by making and installing wood trim, and coating the walls with a simple clay slip. Next I’ll describe how to make and apply a base coat (or scratch coat) clay plaster. Now it’s really getting fun.
Smearing clay slip on a light clay straw wall prior to plastering
Clay slip is an essential material for coating straw bale and light clay straw walls prior to plastering. Basically, it serves as an adhesion coat, essential for getting the first coat of plaster to stick to the wall. There’s not much science to making clay slip, and it’s really fun to smear. Here are a few really simple tips for making and using clay slip for natural walls.
Light clay straw walls are a great surface for finishing using natural plasters. Because the straw-clay is tamped inside of a stud wall, you have a fairly flat surface to start with, compared to something like straw bale which needs a lot of trimming and often extra thick plaster to achieve an even surface.
Here I’ll give some tips and suggestions for how to prepare a light clay straw wall to receive clay plaster, using our recent outhouse project as our demonstration site. In this post, I’ll talk about how to make and install wood trim, which should be the first step in preparing your newly built wall to receive clay plaster.
There are a few tricks you’ll need to ensure a quality job. Read ahead for my method…
Hi there, I’m Ziggy. In 2008, I launched The Year of Mud while building my first natural home. This blog is a collection of personal stories and experiences building with clay, straw, and wood over the past 15+ years. A few of the things that get me fired up are natural plasters, timber framing, & Japanese architecture. Since 2012, we’ve been hosting Natural Building Workshops so you can learn essential skills to build your own natural home.
