Strawbale Braces

I notched the bales with the prying end of a hammer so our 1x3 braces would lay flush to the wall. You'll notice we stacked the bales nearly vertical since the straw is not load bearing and would require less loose straw stuffed areas. Once again the hammer is a handy tool far surpassing the utility and noise if I had used the "literature suggested" chainsaw or roto-zip method.

Salty then anchored the braces into the frame so we skipped the part on threading string to the bales. The top of the wall was stuffed with sections of bales turned sideways and later covered with burlap for the plastering. The top needed no notching just a little side to side movement with hand to separate the pieces of straw.

We stuffed the cracks and seams with dry straw to the middle of the wall and filled the outer 4-6 inches with a straw/slip mix as we plastered to bring the wall semi flush. The consistency of the infill would make a ball when worked with the hands. We applied it by smushing the sphere to it's furthest structural limits and joining the edge where it met the slip-sprayed-straw with a little extra slip. Like joins like.

Also worth mentioning skipping the weed eating part turned out to be a poor choice as compensating for valleys in mountains in the straw was even more time consuming while plastering. Five minutes of prep to trim the wall flush after stacking the bales and before any other step would of saved us at least an hour or two infilling those elevations. So be advised TRIMMING is worth it.