Floats

Another trick of the trade we learned from Athena and Oso last summer (they’re coming back to teach in June, 2024 at Rosewater Ranch, by the way) that I absolutely love is floating one’s walls with a plastic float.

Step 1: Slop on the base coat of plaster over rough earthen walls or straw bales. The base coat can be thick - up to an inch where needed - and is clay soil, chopped straw, and sand. The sand and clay soils are each screened through a quarter or eighth inch hardware cloth depending on thickness of application.

Step 2: “Float'“ the wall trying to get it plumb and flat. Use the float to move material where there’s too much (humps) or too little (depressions). Use a light grip on the float with your fingers splayed across the board. This gives a much greater feel for highs and lows as you move across the wall.

Step 3: As it dries and gets leathery hard, give the wall a hard trowel to smooth and compress the surface. You can call it done here, like for an exterior or garden wall, or cover it with a finer finish plaster.

This technique is particularly good for flat walls but I’ve also used it on ovens.

Go here to buy one. We have two sizes but I use the 240mm x 440mm most often.