--- In
papercreters@yahoogroups.com, "JayH" <slurryguy@...> wrote:
>
> I agree with Spaceman's response, but at the same time, I also encourage experimentation with whatever resources you have available locally.
>
> The key word here is "experimentation." Feel free to try things in small batches to make a few bricks with various ideas. As long as you keep your experiments small, you won't be investing large amounts of money or time in any particular attempt. Perhaps you will discover a technique that none of us here has considered before. <snip>
---
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Just want to say that this post of Jay's should be added to the files section. Think it is some of the best basic advice for newbies (among which I count myself, even though I've been monitoring the group off and on since about 2002 --think it was a *different* group then).
Have been doing experiments in the manner Jay suggests here for more than a year now. I have been trying to come up with a fire-safe, non-cement mix that can be pumped into forms and / or sprayed onto burlap and that will result in a hard, durable wall with substantial water resistance.
Have not had great results. Yet.
Have found that pulped paper (with borax added for insect, mold and fire-resistance) and water cure to a very firm, well-bonded, super lightweight building block. And if the slurry is made thin enough, it can be pumped or sprayed with my trash pump. (Although it shrinks a lot during cure because it was so thin to start with.) But this was already known here. I didn't discover it. Just repeated it.
What I did find was that adding things like a clay and lime, flour, asphalt emulsion and don't recall what else I've experimented with so far, has resulted in a crumbly cured block and a poor, not sticky enough coating for burlap. The coating mostly washed off in rains. I did not achieve the desired water resistance. (But water resistance CAN be achieved with AE. Spaceman tested that many years ago. And Charmaine has cited it, too. I just didn't use the right combo of ingredients, apparently, so far.)
Am certain that one reason for the crumbliness of my cured blocks -- particularly in regard to the clay-lime mix -- is that I added far too much clay. Will be experimenting with much smaller proportions of clay when I get back to this.
What I don't know -- because I haven't done the Mikey Sklar blow-torch test -- is just how burn resistant are my blocks made of only pulped paper with borax added.
Did find a university study last year on using boric acid for fire resistance in papercrete and their findings were disappointing. Took a massive amount of boric acid to do the trick. Much more than we usually find recommended in the papercrete community.
Still have one of my experimental paper/water/borax blocks around. Jay has reminded me that I need to do the fire-test experiment.
Best,
kwc
P.S. Update on experimental miniaturized rocket thermal mass heater: Have it working well outdoors. Have a clean, smokeless burn and am drawing off and storing in mass so much heat that I can lay my hand flat on the exhaust pipe and leave it there during the burn. Is pleasantly warm. Does not get HOT. I'd guess the temperature of the gasses and moisture exiting the exhaust are about 120 F. Heater was still radiating substantial heat last night, outdoors in 31 F temperature, three full hours after I shut off the burn. Today is the beginning of the install. (Need to rip out the dinettee and a lot of stuff in the kitchen section of my RV. Not sure how long that is going to take.) Would be nice to have heat indoors tonight. And tomorrow morning. Don't know if I'll get that far today. Feel good about predicting that it will be installed and burning indoors by tomorrow p.m.)
On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 9:11 AM, <
papercreters@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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