Hello all,
I'd be careful what you mix with cement if you expect it to be strong. Cement by itself it doesn't stick well to many things other then sharp sand and gravel. Try it yourself with a broken chunk off your papercrete block - it will easily convert back to cement dust and paper. I've laid plastic sheeting on wet concrete to seal in the moisture then pulled the plastic off when dry. No stickion.
People have had good luck adding clay or latex paint to the cement mix to make it stickier (to enable it to stick to most of the stuff you listed below) and sand can be added to reduce papercrete shrinkage. You'll notice the more sand you add the closer it gets to being actual concrete in weight and strength.
The hardest paper product I've seen it the plain old phone book. If we could just fuse all the pages together we'd have a very solid block.
Try using perlite 1 to 3 with cement by weight. It makes a very solid block.
Have fun, Joel
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "foodforestdude" <steven.ivy@...> wrote:
>
> I was just wondering what is it exactly that causes the shrinkage we see in so many mixes of PC?
>
> Is ir as I assume, the paper cellulose fibers?
>
> So even if it means not using paper, what other admixtures could be added to decrease the shrinking problem and not give up the nice tensile and insulation properties?
>
> Some substances I have considered as "papercrete" ad-mixtures...
>
> Sawdust, Lawn grass clippings, ground and sifted dried leaves, Pulverized bamboo, Vertiver grass (long, medium, and, or short fiber versions),
> Shredded plastic bottles, broken glass bottles (may want to polish this material for beauty), Shredded plastic shopping bags, Shredded up old carpet, Shredded up old clothing, shredded old rubber tires, Mulched tree bark and or twigs, wheat straw, shredded scrap wood from regular construction, pine needles, Shredded old tar roof waste, rice hulls, peanut hulls, some sort of a human healthy dried fungus...
>
> So what do you think? Any of that worth a shot?
>
------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/papercreters/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
papercreters-digest@yahoogroups.com
papercreters-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
papercreters-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
