[papercreters] Re: Papercrete as growing medium

I'm totally with the square wooden mould thing. A simple way to get pressure would be to fill the open topped horizontal mould, lay a plank onto the mix and have as many people as possible stand on it. I've done that on a small scale and it worked well, how much weight and pressure can be got onto a larger area I don't know. But I can get some people together & try it.

I like the pallet reuse idea. I'm thinking in terms of removably slotting the mould sides into a base, otherwise I expect removing the compressed paper or papercrete would be impossible.

At the moment I'm thinking of trying 3, one with no cement, one with just a little, one with more. I'm not clear how much cement to use though. Minimising it is certainly necessary.

Looks like I'd need about 11kg paper per 4 cuft stick. That is a lot.

I guess after use they could be repulped and recast, though how well that would work with the roots I'm not sure.


thanks



--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "JayH" <slurryguy@...> wrote:
>
> As far as how long they last, I can't help you with anything difinitive there.
>
> They sell "mushroom logs" that are compressed sawdust logs inoculated with mycelium. The shrooms usually cause those to crumble. I suspect one time use is a reasonable expectation.
>
>
> Since you are looking for extreme low cost, I encourage you to consider square pillars instead of round. That would allow you to use things like scrap wooden pallets as a source of material to make a form. It won't be nearly as strong as a metal pipe, but with an appropriately strong design, perhaps strong enough. Then try to come up with a wooden lever arm to thrust a wooden piston inside that square column form. Playing around with the lever arm might give you enough mechanical advantage to put a few hundred lbs of pressure anyway. Perhaps as much as a 1000 if built extremely strong, but it would need to be build like the U.S.S. Constitution. (A very old and extremely strong wooden naval ship... nicknamed "old ironsides" because of it's strength, but the ship never had iron sides, only wood.)
> http://www.history.navy.mil/ussconstitution/history.html
>
>
> If you built a square wooden form using pallet wood slats laid flat in layers, cross bracing them with each successive layer (predrilling nail holes just enough to keep the wood from splitting) and nailing them down to the previous layer, it should become extremely strong. The trick is to keep everything aligned with other boards standing vertically inside it as guides as you build up the layers. Think along the lines of building a square log cabin using flat boards instead of logs.
>
> With careful disassembly of pallets, and a lot of tedious effort, it's possible to build a very strong form reusing the pallet wood and the nails from the pallet. Zero expense other than time invested.
>
> The tricky part would be to build the piston mechanism and have it all hold together while putting lots of force on it.
>
> I still encourage you to experiment with small scale testing, just to be sure you want to go in this direction. Try a small bucket of paper slurry, drain it, and compress a generous handful in a workshop bench vise. You'll be amazed at how the pulp will transform almost like magic. Just be sure to dry off the vise and wipe it down with oil afterwards to avoid rusting the vise, especially if you borrow a friend's vise and you want to keep them as a friend. :)




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