Bob, I am thinking you are correct that finer aggregate can be useful at times, further I think that the aggregate be sharp and of a correct blend of sizes - you have interesting ideas for mixers - 700 rpm may be plenty - as you add more cement and aggregate to the mix, many mixer designs can not lift the heavies off the mixer drum or container - here is what I learned from testing by Barry Fuller, at Living In Paper. Zach Rabons (Greenstar Blox.com )block tested nearly as high for R Value, though it contained the motherload of portland cement. How was this possible with so much dense material ? I think that the high mass particles are sufficiently isolated that there is do conduction of energy accross the bridge. My interest in all this was that I was feeling amiss at using so much cement, though I new that if I did not the papercrete came out as week crap. I reasoned that if adding aggregate did not destroy the mix, i could supplant some of the portland necessity. I presently use four sacks of portland and 12 cubic feet of sand per yard of mix. I add 70 lbs. of newsprint per yard- My mix is now 1/2 mortar and 1/2 paper fiber and air. So, back to the mixer- if you use either a standard rolling concrete mixer or a plaster mixer, add half the sand,water and all the paper it will become a grinding paste and completely disintegrate the paper -then add portland, pozzolan and finally the rest of the sand, which will work its way through, carrying the cements with it. -Clyde T.
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, <bob@...> wrote:
>
> Re: Mortar for PC blocksI am wondering, as the surface area of sand increases the smaller the sand is, would it not be best to use the smallest sand possible? On the border between sand and silt maybe? In my mind the perfect quartz sand would be sharp silt.
>
> In tractor supply yesterday I was looking at the small very stout blades used for the new kind rotary sycles. Each one had a hole in it so that if it hit a immovable object or in the case of using it for slurry a slug of paper. The blades were from about 4 inch to about 6 inch depending on the brand. Next to the blades were the bolts with the collar that fit the hole in the blade. Seems like a good blender type blade for making slurry. I would just need to fix a collar on a long shaft coming off a motor and put a round plate with 2 or 4 holes and mount the blades. Two blades mounted on top the plate and two blades 90 degrees apart from the first two but mounted on the bottom. Next thought was why not use the post hole digger that runs off the pto on my little tractor. It turns at 740 rpm so I don't know if that would be fast enough as the end of the blades would only be about 8 inches from the shaft. How ever I do have a weight lifting bar that is 3/4 inch and about 6 feet long. So if I mounted a couple of small pullies on that and a couple of large pullies on the post hole digger shaft I might could get, say, 3 to 5 thousand rpm on the shaft powered by 30 hp of high torque deisel motor. I wonder how many rpm would make the best slurry using mostly cardboard. Anyone have a thought on this. Bob c
>
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