Thanks and good luck.
Calle
Calle, I haven't made anything for habitation yet only an 8' X 16' shed for a three wheeler. So I don't really want to share (well I will share but don't use it). I use 30 lbs of paper and 30 lbs of cement. That way I get 3 - 160 gallon batches from a bag of cement. I used to add sand, but found no difference between that and sand-less batches. Could be I never added enough, but I was putting in the same weight of sand as paper so 30 lbs. I am stuck working in Alaska right now, but we are on the verge of doing a comprehensive testing program. The students needed a science fair project and so I bought an industrial blender and got some cement and we are going to see if the compaction of papercrete affects the R value. I have 3 thermocouples I will install in the sample (which I am going to make 1" thick) and time the rate of travel from one side of the sample to the other. Also there should be enough sample to do some rudimentary compression and tension testing. So the variables will be volume of cement first (we will run a whole battery with various volume of cement changes) then start all over with different pressing pressures. This may take awhile. But it will energize me to know more about something that I enjoy playing with. Talk to Spaceman about the chicken wire idea. I think he does something like that when he builds the panels for his geodesic domes. Or if he doesn't, he probably did and has some info on it. Mikey Sklar also has put chicken wire or wire of some sort on at least a fencing project if not a structure, and he does a lot of spraying with a Tirolessa type sprayer Cheers Ron From: "valledecalle@ What is your formula? I keep thinking that block is so labor intensive, From: "countryatheartok" <criswells.ok@ sbcglobal. net> Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:18:24 -0000 To: <papercreters@ yahoogroups. com> Subject: [papercreters] Re: shop press Very Well Written Ron.....You write like a Teacher! ;-) I have not tried it yet but, I believe if a person is going to build a large enough structure, he could start on one side and pour all the first course completely around the house, and by the time he gets back to the starting point the mix will be set enough to pour the next course, and if you are fast enough or the building isn't really large, I believe you can pour up to 5 courses high before you need to let it rest over night. I'm sure that if you let it rest overnight using my mixture it will be quite hard the next morning and the pouring can start again for another 5 courses. At that rate you could be 8' high in three or four days. Sure beats waiting days on end for blocks to dry enough to lay! BTB
2. Have acres to let them dry (weeks in Montana a week in Arizona/New Mexico) 3. Keep them ready (dry) for use 4. Have a way to keep them rain free till use? As Clair mentioned this is labor intensive. Pour the brick in the mold, wait an hour, pull the mold off, wait a day, turn the bricks, wait a couple of days, turn the bricks again, when dry enough stack the bricks somewhere out of the weather. Some in the arid regions of the US don't have to worry about the weather, but in Montana (Big Sky Country) you do. I tried to get 3 or 4 batches of bricks dry enough to handle in the middle of a nice hot summer and it took weeks. I even built a little greenhouse out of plastic pipe and visqueen (like a quonset hut). It did get warm in there but the humidity was also high. I opened the ends to allow the humidity out and the temp went way down. Cheers, |
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