Hot Mixing

Clean decomposed red sandstone from just below the soil layer. Clean meaning without organic matter, so no brown or black stuff!

Screening through mesh to remove the biggest bits of gravel and any bits of vegetation.

Fully screened with the larger bits scraped onto the ground in a pile to be used later as pinnings/quinnons.

Screened to about 12mm. Some bits will need removing as I work with it but if it's graded too fine then I won't have enough larger bits in the mortar. You grade slightly larger than you actually want.

Mixed with fresh kibbled quicklime to sand slake. Do this as quickly as possible so it doesn't have time to slake as you're doing it otherwise its unpleasant

Slaking covered to contain the 'Spirit of the Lime' which is most likely an attempt to retain heat and CO2. 

Getting there...

But not quite, needs a bit of a mix and then leaving longer.

Now its slaking vigorously. I could leave it for longer to slake more fully but this was a small project so I wanted to use it the same day.

Mixed well with some lime inclusions which is what I want. I used a whisk because its a lot of effort not too but it is possible to complete this stage by hand.

Homogenised by hand as I wanted to demonstrate how to do this without a roller pan mixer. Which is a must have for lime professionals. 

Plastic and ready to be used and it still has lime inclusions...