We discussed flattening earthbag walls in a previous blog post: Flattening Walls to Save Plaster
In that blog post (and the following Comments afterwards) I described some of the basics of this technique: tamp the sides of walls after several courses are complete; don’t wait too long or the soil will dry and be difficult to tamp; use enough clay in the mix so the earthbags are malleable; focus on eliminating awkward bulges; don’t tamp the walls completely flat – leave recesses between courses of bags so the plaster has something to grab onto.
