What is a Daubing mix for log cabins?

Answer 1

Daubing traditionally consisted of clay or lime with sand, water and a bonding fibre such as horse hair. The mix was similar in thickness and texture to a coarse plaster.

Daubing was apllied over chinking which was basically a filler for the voids formed between logs, particularly on hewn and dovetailed structures. The chinking material was again a material which could be locally harvested such as moss or split and riven cedar strips. This traditional process of chinking and daubing provided some degree of insulation and and cut down on drafs. The daubing, being exposed to the elements, tended to weather quickly, particularly in climates with a freeze thaw cycle and required routine patching or replacement.

Today most people confuse daubing with chinking if they even know what either of them is. This is mostly due to the modern day equivilent of daubing being a product named perma-chink. The perma-chink is an acyrlic based cocking while the modern day chinking which it is intended to be applied over is strip or backer rod of foam.

Daubing was also used in traditional building style known as wattle and daub where the wattle was a trellis work of thin branches which the lime or clay daub was plastered over with and supported by. What sets this daubing apart form that previously mentioned in log building was straw as both bonding fibre and cheap insulative filler. This was commonly used as a crude manner of infilling timber frames for protection against the elelments. This humble vernacular tradition evolved over the years and reached its height of sophistication in Tudor England.