Cob: possible silly question

[Chuck & Linda]

One way that I chop straw is to place a few handfuls into a garbage can,
tilt it at an angle that I can get to and insert a weedwhacker and within 20
seconds I have chopped straw. The airborne dust is manageable and could be
done in a garage. As far as the length, anywhere between 1" and 6" does just
fine for me.

Chuck Learned

-----Original Message-----
From:	owner-coblist at deatech.com [mailto:owner-coblist at deatech.com] On Behalf
Of Shannon C. Dealy
Sent:	Sunday, December 17, 2000 2:33 AM
To:	nigella
Cc:	coblist at deatech.com
Subject:	Re: Cob: possible silly question

On Mon, 15 Dec 2014, nigella wrote:

[snip]
>  I like the idea of earth based plaster and read that you could sieve the
> same ingredients as you used for the cob and make plaster from it. It also
> mentioned that seiving the straw is difficult. Here's my question (please
> don't laugh :)
> Providing you have electricity couldn't you just pick up a few yard sale
> blenders and give the straw a whir? What even caused me to think of this
is
> my soapmaking. I grind the herbs to make soap why not grind straw?
> nigella

While you want short pieces of straw for your plasters (it has been quite
awhile since I last did any plastering, but 1/4" - 1/2" straw comes to
mind, anyone out there with more recent experience or a better memory?), I
suspect you will have a great deal of difficulty getting any consistency
using a blender. If you turn it on long enough to chop up the long
pieces, I would expect that alot of your straw will have been turned to
dust.  The best approach I have seen so far is to run the straw through a
chipper/shredder, and then run the output through a sieve to separate out
the pieces that didn't get chopped up enough.  The biggest problem with
this approach is that the chipper/shredder generates large quantities of
airborne dust, so dust masks are a necessity for anyone with breathing
problems/allergies.  It is also an approach that can only be used outside,
so weather may be an issue, even if you are only planning on plastering
indoors.

Just in case any of your are crazy enough to consider doing this inside an
incomplete building or shop area in the winter, consider that aside from
the noise and breathing concerns, these quantities of dust in an enclosed
space present a significant risk of spontaneous combustion/explosion.


Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
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