Sourcing Clay Render for Internal Plastering

[alun]

Hello, I wonder if anyone can help me out with trying to source a supplier for the following.
I am working on completing my straw bale building in my garden. It will be used for my general hobbies, but especially my drumming, since straw bale should dampen the sound more than my thin walls I share with my neighbour!

Here is the building so far.. I've got another few courses to put on the lime render..
http://www.inglepingle.co.uk/wp-content ... 7817_n.jpg

Anyway. On the inside, I want to render with clay rather than straw, for a finer finish and as it has better acoustic performance. However, in South Wales, I am struggling to find a clay render supplier. In fact, I can only find two on the internet - Clay Works, and JJ Sharpe. The former seems to be far too expensive to consider, and the latter isn't very responsive to emails. I thought I'd ask here if anyone has any better ideas of where I can source clay render from?

Many thanks!
Alun

[Gra]

Don't know sources of clay renders, but why change to expensive clay from cheap lime? You can get very smooth finishes with lime if that's what you are after, using horsehair instead of straw. As for the acoustic performance, I'm certainly no expert but I would have thought that a lime render could be readily modified, depending on the proportion of sand to lime and the type of sand used, to have very similar qualities to that of clay renders.
I wouldn't try making my own clay render, but if clay is available locally you could experiment with adding clay to your lime mix if it is the visual quality of the clay you are looking for.

[alun]

Thanks Gra. I did try looking for locally sourced clay, actually, but I don't think it's that readily available in South Wales! I might see if I can get hold of a trailer and find some near Bristol!!
Lime is an option, but I've read into this fairly extensively, and would prefer clay, given the costs are not largely different from the suppliers I have read about so far. It's just finding a supplier!

[alun]

A heavy session of googling has come up with this page, so I'll see what I can find and I'll post back when I move on with my project :-)
http://www.lowimpact.org/linksnaturalplasters.html

[contadina]

Do you mean to render with adobe? If so, their are only three soil types that will work: Loamy sand, which is 85% sand and 15% clay. Sandy loam which is is 70% sand, 20% clay and 10% silt. The final choice is sandy clay loam, which is 70% sand and 30% clay.

A neighbour rendered his trullo, but had to travel to a neighbouring town to get the correct soil. You can see some of his plastering here http://www.hermannmejer.com/bioedilizia ... /intonaci/ If you've not done your floors yet, check out his pavement links, as he uses an old italian technique similar to Moroccan Tadelakt, which uses hydraulic lime and earth and is incredibly hard-wearing and beautiful to look at.

[alun]

Hi Contadina, yes adobe is another phrase for it! I'm going to try and source the clay and then I'll have to get hold of the other materials to mix up a suitable mix for the plastering. Hopefully I've found someone - I can get hold of some 2" blocks of clay which I can soak down and use in my render. I'll find out later today what the cost is for it, but I think it will be relatively inexpensive.