[papercreters] Re: Soaking finished papercrete

> I picked up some end pieces of dried papercrete from

> the edges of the last blocks I'd made that were laying

> on the ground - sometimes my papercrete leaks out a bit

> under the form. I tossed several thickness' into the mixer

> to soak to see if they'd break down enough to mix back

> in with the new batch. Two days later of being totally

> immersed in water they are not easily breaking

 

Terry, I've had something similar happen.  The first blocks Gib and I made had a lot of clay in them.  Too much clay, I think, and not enough paper or Portland.  When we tried to move them several days later, they broke in half, and a smaller chunk fell off one of the halfs.  It was still fairly wet, so Gib broke it up and tossed it in the soaking paper to mix in with the next batch.

 

We're mixing in a trash can with a drill and mud mixer attachment.  We're using paper, Portland, clay, and water.

 

The next batch we made with the broken-up chunk was extremely hard to mix with the drill.  I'm no chemist, but I'm deducing the small amount of Portland we'd added, combined with the large amount of clay, was enough of a binder to hinder mixing with other materials after it had sat in the sun for several days.

 

But, um, to answer your question, no, we didn't set the chunk in water by itself to see what would happen.

 

Melody in TX

 

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