Papercreters: [papercreters] Re: A Chuckle On Way to Building a PTO Mixer

Monday, March 23, 2009

[papercreters] Re: A Chuckle On Way to Building a PTO Mixer

Consider yourselfs christened lol.
Clair
In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "Robert & Connie" <losee04@...> wrote:
>
>
> Yesterday, I finally got my Christmas present promised to me two
> Christmases ago! My papercrete mixer! I should probably title this,
> "THIS GIVES NEW MEANING TO "PUT A LID ON IT!"
>
> And my sides are still hurting from laughing harder than I can ever
> remember. We tried the just-completed mixer first with the 100 gal.
> tank about 1/3 filled w/water to see if the blade would turn. By
> George, third time was the charm! After spending money on an electric
> and a gas-powered motor from Tractor Supply, after having to drop back
> from two lawn mower blades to just one because of the new configuration,
> the PTO on the tractor was the magic touch we needed. Then we added
> about four armloads of newspaper to see if it would still turn, the
> problem we had before. This brought the tank level up to about half. So
> basically, for our test run, we were making paper mache, not papercrete.
>
> ...And after I gave Hubby a rough time for months that the oblong tank
> with only one blade in the middle wouldn't circulate the paper correctly
> enough to allow the paper to chop up...WELL, SHUT MY MOUTH(!), we had
> finely chopped paper in seconds at just 30 rpm's on the tractor PTO.
>
> We knew we would need a plywood lid on the tank to make the real
> papercrete, that is, when we mix in the concrete, lime, clay, etc., but
> this was just to see if it worked, right? So first, we're watching the
> blade throw an occasional wave of water over the edge of the tank. No
> biggy. Apparently it threw just enough water out to form a bit of a
> vaccuum around the blade and by then the paper was chopped up enough to
> fly like volcanic ash!
>
> It all went straight up, without warning, like Mount Saint Helena. No
> joke. That's exactly what it looked like, a volcanic explosion or a
> geizer. I don't know how high it went, but it was high! High enough to
> cover the tractor, Hubby, our small horse trailer and even a little on
> the big horse trailer!
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> I haven't laughed so hard in years. In fact I was laughing so hard, it
> took me a while to shout out the words, "Turn it off!" But you would
> think since Hubby was in the papercrete storm himself, he would have
> without being told, huh? I was safe because our usual 30-35 mph Texas
> breeze was blowing most of it his direction.
>
> After many minutes of trying to compose ourselves, joking that every
> building in Waco, Corsicana, Mexia and Hillsboro, all 30 miles away and
> all different counties, were now probably papercrete-grey, we then had
> quite a clean-up job ahead of ourselves for fear all the paper-mache
> would harden in all the wrong spots in the tractor's working parts and
> on our horse trailer. Maybe it wasn't quite so funny then. But darn(!)
> how I wish I'd had that on video. That one might have won a prize on
> World's Funniest Videos, sorta like the Absent Minded Professor's
> inventions gone awry.
>
> After all the clean-up and recovery, Hubby turns to me and says,
> "Oh...and Merry Christmas!"
>
> So I finally got my Christmas gift from 1 1/2 years ago. :0)
>
> Here's a couple of close-ups of the working parts. Any technical
> questions, I'll have to ask Hubby and get back with you.
>
> [010.jpg picture by fargoshandmaiden]
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> [012-1.jpg picture by fargoshandmaiden]
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> Connie
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> [011.jpg picture by fargoshandmaiden]
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