Papercreters: [papercreters] Re: Compressed Blocks of papercrete?

Monday, November 10, 2008

[papercreters] Re: Compressed Blocks of papercrete?

Hi Charmaine:

The reason is perception, by the customer , and the building
inspector. If you showed up at a job site with horrible looking bricks
which were not at all uniform you would have a problem.
I understand your point that the finished product will be just as nice
either way but I learned a very expensive lesson selling antique
flooring. The best , and least expensive way to reclaim surface
flooring is to carefully remove it and nail it back down in the new
location and sand it in place. It is much cheaper and you lose a lot
less material than sanding with a stationary machining or re-milling
with a moulder. The end result is visually identical and the cheap
method is actually superior. After having several people reject a
floor I had no other market floor and a great deal of money in I
realized I had to do whatever it took to please the customer.
This idea will never become really big unless it "looks" professional.

I no very little about this process but quite a bit about marketing
and the percieved value of this block
[image]http://www.livinginpaper.com/images/pic_holding%20block.gif
[/image]
is a lot easier sale than this one
[image]http://www.livinginpaper.com/images/pic_BarryScrew.jpg [/image]

What do think about using a higher percentage of paper in a compressed
block and using a lighter pressure to offset some of the disadvantage
in the inoculative properties? Using abobe and lime with the paper
would give you some thermal mass advantage it seems.

If I was just going to build my own stuff I would scrounge together a
tow mixer , or use my hammer mill and a motor mixer. But I also want
to build adobe ovens and the press would make that a lot faster and a
lot cheaper, it would shave weeks off the project.

Mixing cob with your feet may be a pleasant "natural" experiance but
it kills my back and it is dreadfully slow and labor intensive. A
press fed by equipment to mix the dirt could do more in a day that a
weeks worth of foot stomping , if not more. At least it seems so to me.

I really appreciate a person with your experiance willing to help us
newbies, thanks!

--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "charmaine49"
<dirtcheapbuilderbooks@...> wrote:
>
> --- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "peddler8111" <fpcharnock@> wrote:
> >
> > Has anyone tried making compressed blocks w/ papercrete or paper
adobe?
> >
> ++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> probably some have, but it removes the advantage of light weight and
insulative.. pressing
> takes the air & water out and you end up with a dense, but somewhat
lighter brick... there
> is no advantage to manually adding a workstep of pressing, and the
cost of a CEB, , and
> besides the papercrete would have to be very dry to compress, as any
resident moisture
> may squish out and you get a thin brick., unless you wanted a
decorative thin brick. that
> still needs to cure for a period, why bother?
>
> adobe soil has just 4% or so, moisture before adding to a CEB to
make a block, while wet
> papercrete is - I imagine-- 20% or more ( ? anyone know the stats?)
water once
> drained.... so not as good for the 35,000 PSI you get in compression
of a Cinva Ram
> press.
>
> A manual hand press, or a brick press may work, but still it will
squeeze the block down
> smaller I think.
>
> I know a couple people may have a CEB ( the cinva ram) has anyone
tested this formula?
>
> Charmaine Taylor
> www.dirtcheapbuilder.com www.papercrete.com
>